Ronin Trip Book Two: Wild Dogs and Hunting Wolves
by James Firecat
Summary: AU: A “retelling” of the second Suikoden Game, OCs but no OC/ canon character romance. A tale of trust, friendship, betrayal, and some young soldiers, and some mercenaries.
1. Chapter 1

Ronin Trip

Book two: Wild dogs and hunting wolves

AN: I started posting the first book of Ronin Trip about a year ago to an extremely tepid reaction. Because of that I decided not to post the second book even though I'd already written it, but now apparently I just can't help myself I really do think that this one will get me more reviews (please let me get more reviews!)

Also after this chapter I'll probably employing an editor, so if it seems like this one is a little bumpy grammatical, don't worry it'll get better...

Chapter one: Rescued from the Styx

"SURPRISE ATTACK!" Those words shattered the world as Riou knew it. Everything he thought he could count on vanished in an instant. The leave he was going to get tomorrow was gone, he might never make it back to his home town of Kyaro, might never see his adopted sister Nanami again. But these thoughts flashed through his mind in the blink of an eye and he didn't take the time to contemplate them long.

Not for nothing had he become an official member of the Highland Army's Unicorn Brigade. Yes it was a "youth" brigade for those too young to be full soldiers, but Riou was far from simply a youth himself. Though the training was less rigorous than it could have been, it had done a lot to improve his reflexes. Which was why when he heard the words he at once out of bed and opened his eyes.

By the time he could make sense of what he saw, he was pleased to realize his friend Jowy Atreides was already up and offering a helping hand down to him. Riou took it without any hesitation, not only was this no time to be worrying about his dignity, but he and Jowy had been friends since their childhood in Kyaro. That long friendship had seen many moments when one of them had gained some kind of advantage over the other, it would doubtlessly survive one more.

"Grab your weapons and let's go see what exactly is going on." Riou didn't need to be told twice, the small tent had been shared by four soldiers but the other two had already left making the task of getting his twin fang tonfas easier. Thankfully, given how cold the tent was he had gone to sleep with his clothes on leaving with him one fewer thing to worry about.

Once he was ready he raced from the tent with Jowy and they were confronted with devastation. Outside the tent the dead bodies of several of Riou and Jowy's companions lay without rhyme or reason. In his still hazy frame of mind Riou couldn't be perfectly sure of what had killed which, and it was something that he was grateful for. The last thing he wanted to have during a massacre was a keen understanding of exactly what was going on around him.

Several of the tents and trees around the camp were on fire and the smoke stung Riou's eyes making him blink and squeeze them shut. Still the carnage held the two motionless for several seconds on end.

"What are you two waiting for, the State dogs to come up and slit your throats? You have to get out of here!" Riou turned around to face the speaker, recognizing a voice to which obedience had recently become a deeply engraved natural response. The brigades leader Captain Rowd was not the warmest of commanders, but he was the only one that Riou and Jowy had ever known. More to the point, his sword was out and it had blood on it, and in the sparkling light cast by the fires he did look every inch the military man.

"Of course sir!" Riou wasn't quite sure if he should follow those words up with a salute or not, though Jowy apparently decided that he might as well.

"Not now Atreides, the only way out of this blasted camp is through the forest to the east! Get moving, I'll go see about paying back those City State bastards!" Rowd furiously gestured with his blood stained blade and the two friends took off at once.

----

The tenuous peace that had recently been established between the City State of Jowston and Highland was apparently another casualty of the last few minutes of Riou's life. But he didn't much think about that either, he only thought about running. He had been in good shape before he had joined the army, but he was in excellent shape now, so the rhythm of raising and lowering his legs came easily to him. He wasn't sure how long he had been running for before he noticed that his was the only sound of footfalls that he was hearing. He stopped as quickly as he could and turned around. Thankfully Riou had only stopped running rather than been hurt in some way.

"What are you stopping for, we have to get out of here..." Jowy stuck his staff in the ground and leaned on for a moment, he wasn't in quite as good shape as Riou was.

"We do, but not this way. If the State soldiers were smart enough to manage to sneak up on us and avoid our sentries, do you think that they wouldn't have noticed how this forest is the only way to get out of the camp? They could have launched the attack with a small portion of their forces to spook us and then be waiting further ahead to smash us to pieces one by one while we're panic stricken."

Riou paused and did think about that, it made only too much sense considering that they hadn't seen a single State soldier anywhere near the camp despite the flames.

"You're right, we need to go back and tell Commander Rowd." Still with all do haste they began to retrace their steps back the way they came.

----

As they approached the camp their pace faltered. Things seemed to have gone quite, but to an unnatural degree. All the fires were out and no screams of the wounded or battle cries filled the air. A single look was exchanged between them and they went from running to creeping along in the shadows, after all it was entirely impossible that the entire camp had been overrun.

They kept as many tents as they could between them and the soldiers gathered around a new camp fire that had apparently been made by burning a tent to the ground. When Riou slowly peaked out it was not a great many men dressed in State uniforms, but Highland ones. Not those belonging to the Unicorn Brigade, but real soldiers. Rowd was with them, as was another man who easily stood out.

He was dressed in white armor with pieces of golden trim and had black hair, his eyes were impossible to see since he was currently looking away from them.

"That was excellently done Rowd. All the proof we could ask for of the State's treachery. Those heartless monsters, murdering soldiers who were so very young!" He laughed at that point, but it was a sound that precious little levity in it. Rowd responded, but for the first time his voice could not have been more respectful.

"Of course. Your idea was brilliant and if I may say so, perfectly carried out. The ambush went out without a hitch." The dark haired man nodded as he drew a sword which unlike Rowd's was unstained.

"Yes. The dwindling coals of this glorious war will soon be rekindled and burn all of Jowston to ash! I just wish I had been able to take part in the ambush, I've gone too long without slaking my swords thirst." Rowd shivered slightly as if he worried that the sword might quench it's thirst by taking a bite out of him.

"Witnessing your skill in combat would have shamed the other soldiers your majesty. There is no finer swordsman in Highland than Prince Luca Blight." Riou pulled back behind the tent as did Jowy and they decided that it was safer not to say anything. The last thing they needed was for their voices to attract extremely unwanted attention. So instead they began to slowly half crawl half sprint through the camp till they could be sure that they were far enough that their words wouldn't carry.

"How could they?" Riou hadn't quite managed to exchange his fear for anger yet the way that Jowy had.

"We obviously can't escape through the woods, your right it'll be an ambush. But that only leaves the cliffs..." Jowy rose from his crouch nodding stoically.

"It wouldn't be the first long climb we've had. Besides like you said, it's not like we've got any other choice." Jowy suddenly leaned a lot more heavily on his staff than he had been. "But if it's all the same, why don't we take our time about getting up there?"

"Yeah, the less noise we make the better." Of course part of Riou knew that he was just trying to find some reason to ease his aching chest and legs, and this seemed like the best chance that they would have for a while."

----

"Looks like I was right..." Jowy and Riou's eyes went as the solider stepped out of the pile of bushes near the edge of the cliff he'd been hiding behind.

"The prince didn't think that any of you pipsqueaks would be smart enough to try and escape this way, but I thought better safe than sorry." Once again the two friends locked eyes and exchanged volumes of information without needing to speak. It was quite clear that the less than harrowing pace they had taken up the cliff had just proven itself to be a very good idea.

"Why are you doing this?" The soldier drew his short sword and approached the two boys.

"Don't be so selfish about it. You're just living up to the promise you made when you joined the Unicorn Brigade, to be willing to give up your lives for the good of Highland! Do you want to die like kicking and screaming children or men who honored their word?" Neither option seemed very appealing to Riou, he had agreed to join the army to protect Highland, not to get his throat cut serving it.

"If dying for Highland is so great why don't you do it!" Jowy adjusted his body slightly, transforming the object in his hands from walking stick to weapon. The soldier took another step forward and Riou raised his arms, ready to use his twin fangs as well. The solider swung at Riou, but he blocked the blade with the tonfa on his right hand. He tried to strike out with the other one but the solider had a much longer reach and only laughed as Riou's swung at open air.

He stopped laughing when Jowy thrust his staff directly into his chest. Instead he let out a sound of surprise, and reeled backwards slightly. Before he could catch his breath, Riou raced forward and struck at the man's legs. His first blow simply skimmed along the armor, but the second arriving a few seconds later managed to smash through a weakened section of armor.

The soldier dropped to his knees and then Jowy whacked him upside the head with his staff, making the armored helmet ring and the soldier drop flat. Jowy dropped his staff and reached for his combat knife with one hand while using the other to remove the soldier's helmet. Riou saw what he was planning on doing at once and tried grabbing hold of his friend's shoulder to stop him.

"What are you thinking?" Jowy shook him off without ever removing his eyes from the soldier's neck.

"The same thing we're doing a few seconds ago. This bastard wants to kill us, and so I'm going to kill him. That's what they told us being soldiers was all about wasn't it?" Riou looked down at the unconscious soldier, and then looked away, turning his attention to the mountains. He shivered slightly at the sound behind him, though the sight of the mountains made him shiver even more. They were practically straight up, even if they hadn't been tired there was no way the two boys could climb them.

"We can't just wait here, sooner or later they'll come looking for us, or at least to find out happened to this soldier." When he looked back Jowy was cleaning his knife on the dead soldier's outfit as best he could.

"Yeah. But that guy is only going to tell them that we were here and not which way we went. They'll never be able to get us if we jump into the river." Riou looked over at the edge of the cliff, which was a harrowingly long way down.

"Maybe, but even if we manage to survive the fall, we don't have much chance against the current." Jowy, instead of paying attention to the river, was looking at a small stone nearby the edge of the cliff.

"Do you think I don't know that? But whatever chance we have in there must be better than the ones we have if we just sit around here twiddling our thumbs..." Jowy made use of his knife again and carved a diagonal slash into the rock.

"There, now you do the same thing Riou, and I promise you that when all this is over we'll meet up back here again. That way, no matter what happens we'll both be okay because neither of us would ever break a promise to the other, right?" Riou slowly walked over and drew his own combat knife. A bit of the blood from Jowy's knife had seeped into the slash he had made.

"Right." A quick slash and then there was an "X" carved into the rock.

"All right then, on the count of three?"

"Friends to the end; one, two three." The two clasped hands and jumped into whatever came next.

End chapter one


	2. Chapter 2

Ronin Trip

FN: (Firecat Note) I would just like to point something out something in my writing I tend to depict those with True Runes much the same way as the Halo books depict Spartan Mark IIs, the Ciaphas Cain books depict Space Marines, larger than life bad-asses. That and I tend to focus more about the fun involved in getting from point A to point B than about the drama since everyone reading this probably knows how Riou and Jowy's story will end...

Oh also this chapter introduces the OCs...

Book two: Wild dogs and hunting wolves.

Chapter two: The paper mache cage.

"Hey kid are you okay?" Riou opened his eyes and tried to answer, tired to breath. It was a mistake. His mouth still had water in it, and he ended up nearly choking on it till he tried to breathe through his nose and had better success. Then he finally managed to at least go about the process of coughing up a storm and emptying a fair bit of the river's contents out of his throat. Once he had finally done that he looked over at who had saved him. It was a nay-kobold.

Almost everything about him was red: red jacket, pants, shirt, and hat as well. The only exception was his eyes which were a bright blue. Looking at that open jacket Riou could see a great many knives resting safely in their sheaths. No one, not even a cook, would need that many knives, (especially considering that knives were apparently of the exact same make) in any job other than a soldier.

"I'm better now, who are you?" The nay-kobold drew back slightly so that his eyes weren't looking directly into Riou's eyes.

"I'm James Firecat, Prophet of Destruction. As for you?" The phrase "Prophet of Destruction" rang a bell somewhere in Riou's mind but he couldn't place it.

"I'm Riou from the Highland Unicorn Brigade." A moment later the reality of the situation flashed before his eyes.

"What happened to Jowy, did you manage to drag someone else out of the river as well?" James' face fell, his whiskers and ears did so as well, he was the first nay-kobold Riou had met but his body language was pretty easy to read.

"No. I'm sorry. You see I didn't so much drag you out as fish you out. Is your arm okay?" Riou wondered what exactly James was talking about till he noticed that his left arm was adorned with a white cloth.

"The river has a current that even I don't want to try and swim against, so I was using a super strong line. When you were going down the river my hook got in your arm. I applied some basic healing magic, but you should be glad you didn't wake up till after I'd manage to cut my line and pull the barbed hook out of your arm. Your friend must have gotten swept further down river."

Riou turned and glared at the river as if it had purposely torn his best friend right out of his life. All of a sudden something shifted in one of the trees above the two. A moment later Riou was greeted with a very odd sight, or at least one of the oddest sights he had seen recently.

A woman who had apparently been sleeping on a tree limb rolled over and declined to fall from the tree limb. Instead she somehow hooked her feet around the limb and simply hung upside down from it without seeming at all put out. She was wearing a white jacket, and black pants instead of some kind of dress, so her garments were largely unaffected by her odd posture.

"So James did you catch any fish?" James stood up and gestured with one hand towards the woman and with one hand toward Riou.

"No, but I did hook something interesting. Riou, this is Mirri Catwarrior, Mirri this is Riou from the Highland Unicorn brigade." Mirri uncurled her toes, dropped towards the ground, but somehow managed to right her body fast enough to land on her feet.

"Highland Unicorn Brigade? James did you let me sleep through a sneak attack during which you fended off your fishing spot from an entire brigade of Highlanders, and even took a prisoner? I'm not saying you couldn't, I'm just wondering why you didn't wake me up so that I could have a piece of the fun." Now that he didn't have to look at her upside down Riou also saw that Mirri had dark brown hair parted by a white steak, though her face suggested that she was still fairly young. At least that was what her face suggested at first glance, at second it brought a famous children's rhyme to the very forefront of his mind.

"Your heart should fill with dread, when you meet someone with eyes of red." Of course the real meaning of the rhyme was left unsaid: vampires always had red eyes. For a brief moment Riou pondered jumping back into the river from which James had fished him, after all vampires were suppose to hate running water with a passion. But his feet were rooted quite firmly in place. Meanwhile James was paying no attention at all to his discomfort; instead he was proudly holding up a wooden rod.

"Nothing so dramatic Mirri. He's just the 'catch of the day' I guess, and you told me I wouldn't be able to hook anything!" Mirri casually strode over; bits of sunlight filtered through the trees leaves, and as she walked forward several of them played across her. Nowhere did her skin burst into flame, or melt away to reveal a bleached skeleton beneath it. Well at least she seemed more occupied with James than with Riou at the moment.

"No, I said that you wouldn't catch any fish. It's the wrong season to be fishing near waterfalls for anything other than foolish boys who apparently want to throw their lives away." For some reason that Riou couldn't understand he decided to speak up at that point.

"I didn't just jump in for kicks. We were being chased..."

"By who?" James asked it with something that sounded like genuine concern, which would have been fine if it wasn't for the fact that Riou wasn't quite sure of the answer. This time around however his silence apparently did all the talking that was needed.

"One way or another James its time to pack up your fishing gear. We better bring this catch back to Alexander at once. Of course I doubt we'll need to clean and gut him, but I won't be sure till we find out how talkative he feels."

That did it; Riou suddenly realized where he had heard "Prophet of Destruction" before. It had been about a week back when he and the other soldiers had been telling stories around the campfire. One of the soldiers had said that Jowston was full of cowards because they used their money to buy mercenaries rather than fighting wars themselves. This in turn had been accompanied by another soldier saying that even the people of Jowston were cowards that didn't mean the mercenaries were.

This had been countered with all sell swords would at least act cowardly because they fought for money rather than true loyalty. Then another soldier had said that the Prophets of Destruction were an exception. After being pressured the soldier said that the Prophets of Destruction were a small band of mercenaries that he had heard rumors of Jowston employing who could keep up with if not surpass the best of real soldiers.

They never ran from a fight, and they were responsible for more or less turning the entire Scarlet Moon Empire upside down six years ago. As if that hadn't been enough, a few more soldiers had volunteered stories that they had heard about the Prophets from their parents, grandparents or in a couple of rare cases (passed down either in books or by story) even farther back.

If you believed what the stories had to say the Prophets had taken part in just about every important war as far back as anyone could remember. Not just a group bearing that particular name, but the exact same people. That was impossible, wasn't it?

No matter how he stretched his imagination, Riou could not imagine James Firecat as a heartless butcher of any and every enemy who came within his reach. Mirri on the other hand...

"So I'm a prisoner?"

"Par excellence." James' words brought him very little comfort.

XXX XXX XXX XXX

Riou woke up and wished that he was back in "his" tent, however small and cramped it was, he had come to know it as home. But most of all if he woke up in his tent it would prove to him that everything he though he had just gone through was nothing more than a horrible nightmare.

But apparently it wasn't, he couldn't remember ever having a nightmare during which he went to bed and then woke back up still trapped in his own dreams. So instead he simply looked around at his new situation and room. For a cell it was reasonably sized, and since he didn't have to share it with anyone he ended up having more space to himself than he had in that tent.

The biggest change was that he was a prisoner now, he wouldn't be able to leave through that door. He wouldn't have to stand sentry duty at some point, but the only place he had to go was the contents of this room.

All of a sudden there was a rapping. To his surprise it came not against the door but against the stone wall nearby the door, which meant the person rapping on the wall couldn't see Riou at the moment.

A few moments passed in mutual silence, and then there was another series of raps against the wall. He realized that whoever was knocking his fist against that wall apparently was waiting for some kind of conformation.

"Fine, you can come on in." It was apparently a very strange sort of prison he was being held in where the guards asked (even if they didn't do it implicitly) for their prisoner's consent to come in. A moment later things made slightly more sense as James Firecat walked in. He held a tray of food in his hands, and he set it down before Riou.

"Here you go, a little of everything, or at least a little of everything that we serve the soldiers. I'm not sure what's your pleasure, so help yourself." Riou looked at all the food on the tray, it was easily the biggest meal he had seen set before him in a long time.

"What gives?" James recoiled backwards slightly his ears twitching.

"Nothing gives. If you want me to prove the food isn't poisoned I'll be glad to eat some to do just that. And you won't have to worry about catching something from me, I don't have: hardpad, softpad, worms, the mange, the coughs, the licks, the itches, the scratches, I never mark my territory, and I have a good friend who mixes me a couple of things that help give my coat this silky smooth sheen. Well, it does that and it also kills off fleas, ticks and any other nasty stuff that may be trying to love off or inside me." Riou looked between the food and James for a while and then looked deep into the ne-kobolds eyes.

"Are you sure you're a mercenary?" James nodded and causally pushed the tray of food towards his prisoner.

"I'm sure. And there's nothing I hate to see more than someone suffering. Now then, are you going to eat this on your own, or do you want me to chew this stuff myself, before vomiting it into your mouth while I rub your throat to make sure you swallow?"

For a few moments there was complete silence in the cell as Riou waited for some tick in James' face to tell him that it was all a joke. Not so much as a whisker quivered, James just looked silently at Riou, and then very slowly the ne-kobold began to reach for a small apple on the tray. Riou beat him to it by a mile, devouring the red fruit in a couple ravenous bites.

It had been a while since his last meal, and he usually didn't do anything close to the strenuous life or death escape that had gone on between his dinner and breakfast. That added up to him being genuinely hungry and he found himself completing devouring everything on the tray while James watched approvingly. One he finished, James casually picked up the tray and tossed it outside the cell.

"Okay then, I'm glad to see you can eat. In fact it's a lot more important that you want to eat, there are some people who simply waste away to nothing when things don't go their way. If you had tried to fight me when I put food in your mouth than I'd be really worried. Probably as worried as you are about your friend." Riou looked at his "cell mate" with surprise bordering on shock. "How did you...?" James laughed and casually put a finger to his temple.

"Please, do you think all I do with this thing is just here to make my muzzle look pretty? Your brain and your spirit are the two most important tools you have in any situation. When you have them, and a couple of good friends, you can get through anything. I could tell that you're worried about your friend just by the look on your face.

Don't be, the river's current gets a lot milder not far down stream, odds are your friend got washed ashore somewhere in that general area." Riou thought about that, and about the outfit he was wearing and the one Jowy had been.

"But he's wearing a Unicorn Brigade outfit, and that means..."

"That means squat. You see you and I have something in common besides profession, we both ending up signing on too late to do any of the fighting. Highland and Jowston have been at peace for months now, and there's no conceivable reason for it to end." No conceivable reason, that was well put, after all Riou certainly couldn't had conceived what had just happened to him a week ago.

"I wouldn't be too sure about that." James tilted his head to the side, but when he saw that no further explination was forth coming he simply reached into his jacket, and pulled out a deck of cards.

"Ehh why should we worry about the things we can't change? Let's just play some cards, you know how to right?" Playing cards had been another of those things that Riou had picked up during his time in the Unicorn Brigade, but one of the key ingredients was missing.

"We don't have anything to play for." Riou expected James to produce a bunch of shiny stones, possibly more food, or any of the countless other things that he had seen soldiers play with (and played for) when they didn't have genuine money article on hand.

But what James did instead was reach into his jacket and removed a wad of bills, he repeated the process a couple of dozen times and when all was said and done, there was a small mountain of paper bills laying about him.

"There we go. That's my last month's pay, and I didn't even get any kind of hazard pay either, here's your half. I'm not sure if it would be any good back where you come from but it'll always make an impressive pile of kindling."

It would be good back in Highland. Part of the results of the last war between the two nations had been that the two had agreed to use the exact same currency. The advantage to it was that it made trade between the two nations much easier, the disadvantage was that it also made it easier for one nation to reap the advantages of plundering the other during a war.

Riou had been first quite certain that the bills must have been small denomination. But after doing a quick inspection of his "half" (it seemed to have been fairly randomly determined how James split his money) it added up to, well considerably more than it had a right to.

"You make twice this in one month? It's a small fortune!" James just causally shrugged as he took a moment to shuffle up his deck of cards and then slowly began to deal them out.

"What can I say, we're the Prophets of Destruction, if there are people who are willing to pay what we ask, and then it can't really be 'too' much. Now then, Mirri says that playing without wilds is the manliest way to do it..." As James said that, he took a quick glance around but clearly saw no one else around.

"But since she isn't here, deuces, sevens, one eyed shoguns, the seppuku emperor and stars are wild."

XXXX XXXX XXXXX

Riou played cards, but he somehow got the feeling that James wasn't truly in the game. But then all things considered, at least it was an interesting deck of cards they were playing with. On all of the face cards there were highly detailed drawings of different people. From the sheer level of detail whoever had done the drawing must have known the people quite well, or at least had them present at the time.

He discovered to surprise that Mirri's image was on the queen of spades, but none of the people he was managed to truly draw his interest, until he saw the star of swords. It bore the image of a tall man whose silver hair contrasted starkly with his full body black outfit.

Even only looking at a miniature painting of the man, Riou felt like the man's golden amber eyes were piercing right through his soul, but there was nothing he could do about it, so he just kept up the game until finally he called James.

"I've got a harem going." The nay-kobold proudly showed off a pair of queens, a seven, an emperor and a five.

"Orgy." Riou countered with the other two queens, two shoguns and his star of swords. James pushed the pot Riou's way without an ounce of hesitation.

"Congratulations." As he reached to start shuffling their hands back into the deck Riou stopped him.

"That man on the star of swords, who is he?" James began to casually shuffle the deck and for a few moments Riou was afraid that he wouldn't get an answer. Fortunately those fears proved to be unnecessary.

"That's Alex, well he prefers Alexander, Diamondclaw. Alex is the leader of the Prophets of Destruction, he's a great guy even if he doesn't like other people to realize it. Since I answered a question of yours, will you answer one of mine? Tell me what happened last night."

Riou waited for a while and then sighed. "There was a surprise attack against the Unicorn Brigade." There was a monetary pause as Riou tried to figure out what to say. His desire to say the truth went up against his loyalty to Highland, and in the end, he finally came up with reasonable medium between them.

"I'm not sure who was behind it, because I didn't see any State soldiers there." James picked up what was left of his money and walked out.

"You can keep what you won and the deck of cards, you'll probably be playing a lot of solitaire, not to mention it would probably be worth quite a lot to the right person, there are only six decks like it in all of Suikoden. We got them pretty recently in the Scarlet Moon Empire, well I guess it's the Toran Republic now...

That's why Emperor Barbarossa is the Emperor of Hearts, long story behind that though I don't have time to tell it. Oh, and if your that worried about someone attacking you because you're from Highland I'll get you someone to modify some of my 'civilian' clothing for you. I put quotes around it that because it's basically what I wear all the time, that's an advantage to being a mercenary, you can dress however the hell you want. I just hope you like red." Without further ado James walked off tail swaying.

XXX XXXX XXX XXX

All of the other Prophets were waiting for James when walked into the command room, of course Alexander actually asked the question that the others were thinking.

"So what did you learn?" James pulled up a chair and sat down.

"A fair bit. Apparently there was some kind of surprise attack on his brigade, but he didn't see any state soldiers, and the only way he could escape was going into the river." Everyone rocked back and forth in their chairs for a few moments before Florence Bastien spoke.

"So do you think we did it?" Cal scoffed loudly at the idea.

"I doubt it. If Jowston was starting something they should have had us at the forefront of it, not sitting back here viciously assaulting dust bunnies."

"And if our employers turn out to be incredibly evil and foolish?" Devi was always one to consider every possible angle, but Alexander had an answer for her at once.

"Then it wouldn't be the first time. For now we just play it by ear. That means doubling patrols so that we make sure we don't get taken by surprise, and we'll dispatch a rider to Muse. We'll have to see if Anabelle knows anything about this, and if she does, well that's a conversation for another day. Let's keep our eyes peeled for our new guest's friend. If he shows up, make sure that he gets the kind of welcome he deserves." A few razor thin smiles were exchanged and then everyone stood up, the issue had been dealt with.

XXXX XXXX XXXX XXX

The next week passed pathetically slowly for Riou. After the breakneck pace of his life or death escape, it just made his time spent as a prisoner of war pass that much slower. He managed to exercise a little inside his cell and he had once been able to convince James to give him a quick tour of the fort. However during that tour James had shown an almost disturbing level of attention to the singular task of making sure that not once did Riou get more than five feet away from him.

He had however made good on the outfit, apparently someone in the mercenary fort was a fairly good hand with a needle because it fit Riou about as well as his uniform did. Still he doubted it made much difference, he was treated well, but that was only because on his own he had no chance to escape.

XXX XXX XXXX XXX X

"Riou, you awake?" Riou slowly opened his eyes and turned to look in the direction from which the voice had come. Jowy was standing outside his cell. Like Riou he was no longer in his Unicorn Brigade outfit but instead a blue shirt and pair of blue pants. Jowy at once rushed over to his friend who easily opened the door, after all it was just a simple lock.

"Your okay?" Riou nodded and smiled as his friend passed him back his twin fangs.

"I could ask the same about you. I washed up further down stream and some nice people took care of me. I heard rumors that there was a Highland captive in this fort so I decided to check it out. I managed to sneak in by posing as one of the civvies they use for cooking and such around here. Now come on, we don't have any time to waste."

Riou nodded and headed for the stairs leading out of the forts basement as soon as he had clipped his weapons onto his arms. He had made a habit of wearing everything he would need in case of rescue on his person just to be safe and it looked like the precaution was going to pay off.

Riou came to a stop as he got to the top of the stairs, in fact it was so abrupt that Jowy barely managed to avoid running into him as well. Alexander Diamondclaw was even more impressive in person than he had been on the card. He stood taller than Prince Luca Blight, and strapped to his back was a wicked looking curved longsword.

His arms were crossed, and he gave Riou a look that was worse than any that a Highland sergeant had ever given him. Sergeants at least had acknowledged that he was old enough and had the spirit to go to war, even if he wasn't very good at it. The look that Alexander gave him made it quite clear that the only sword he felt Riou was old enough to hold was one made of wood.

"So..." Jowy maneuvered himself as best he could in the narrow stairway to stand shoulder to shoulder with Riou.

"Who are you?" A black gloved hand slowly went up and down, tapping very slowly. It was the first time Riou had ever seen a soldier wearing black gloves, such clothing was normally reserved for executioners.

"General Alexander Diamondclaw, leader of the Prophets of Destruction, currently in the employ of the United City State of Jowston. Riou would you be kind enough to introduce me to your friend?"

"Jowy Atredies, also from the Highland Unicorn Brigade." Ever so slowly Alexander's right hand went back till it finally curled around his blade's hilt.

"I'll be sure to let the cooks know that they'll need to make twice as much of whatever they're feeding the prisoners. Now then, why don't you go back to the cell, or will I have to show you the way?" Jowy's hands tightened on his staff, and Riou gripped his own weapons as well, but he didn't want to. He had felt it before from Prince Blight, Alexander's battle aura wasn't just stronger than a normal soldier's, it was stronger than anything's short of a god had a right to be.

"Just remember your sister, we have to hit him with everything we have!" In the blink of an eye, Jowy dashed past Alexander, spinning his staff even as Riou began to do the same with his tonfas. Then they charged at the exact same moment. They had worked together and preformed this special attack several times before, it had never failed them. Up until now. Alexander pivoted and grabbed hold of Jowy's staff. Then he completed the pivot, dragging Jowy off his feet in the process, causing him to crash into Riou as he went forward.

The two fell down the stairs adding a few more burses and scrapes to their wounds. Without ever having to draw his blade, their opponent had left both of them in a tangle of limbs on the floor.

"Don't doubt that I could have killed you. But I care about winning the war first, and money second. Your deaths advance me and my men toward neither. In fact we are moved in the opposite direction, since I expect that both of you saw the same events involving the Unicorn Brigade. When one child tells you something, it may be dismissed as a story, when it is voiced by two, people will have a much harder time ignoring it." Then, without any particular strain, Alexander picked up Riou in one hand and Jowy in the other carried them down to the cell and tossed them in (not exactly roughly but quite firmly) and then shut the door. At once Jowy scuttled over to the side of the side of the room away from the door.

"What are you doing?" Jowy scowled at the door and then smiled at his friend.

"I made preparations in case things went wrong, and that arrogant son of a bitch forgot to frisk me." Riou wasn't sure what exactly Jowy had on him, and he didn't really care. "Yeah, but what if we get caught again?" Jowy let out a loud exasperated sigh.

"What would you do without me Riou? At the moment, Alexander is the only one who knows that I'm in here. Of course he'll tell his men that he's got another prisoner, but they won't know what I look like. So all we have to do is wait for the right moment, unlock the cell door, I'll grab our weapons and if someone asks what we're doing I'll say I'm getting you exercise. I hope since you've been here a lot longer than me you can tell me when the best moment would be." The answer sprang to Riou's mind at once.

"James told me that they have a meeting that all the Prophets go to after he finishes feeding me. They usually only last about ten minutes but that's plenty of time to get out of here if we move fast." Jowy nodded and causally took possession of the only bed in the cell.

"There we go then." Riou climbed onto the bed as well and the two friends managed to allay their fears concerning what came next by battling each other for control of the bed.

It was pathetically easy. Jowy still had a lock pick on him which he got to work with as soon as James had started going up the stairs. Inside sixty seconds he had managed to get the door open and inside five minutes the mercenary fort was to their backs. "Heh, nice job, if we ever see this place again it'll be too soon."

"An empty cell, you know what that means James, don't you?" "One way or another I'm going to refill it?" "Darn straight, Firecat. Mirri you go with him to make sure he keeps his nose to the scent and not sniffing the blue roses." "Of course sir."

End Chapter.


	3. Chapter 3

Ronin Trip

Book two: Wild dogs and hunting wolves.

Chapter three; Enough rope to hang somebody with.

FN: Sorry for taking so long, was depressed about how few hits the fic was getting but decided might as well take the time to edit and post this chapter anyway (the entire story is already written, but I write so solopily that editing each chapter takes about half as long as writing it) and I've got a 9 to 5 jobs on weekdays now, so not as much free time as I'd like anymore...

Riou and Jowy decided almost as soon as they had managed to put a fair amount of distance between themselves and the fort that they should stop at the town of Ryube before trying to make it back home. Though they had just eaten before escaping neither one had any significant rations on them, and while they could scavenge some, not enough to get by on.

Ryube was also easily the largest village in the surrounding area. Riou had managed to sneak a couple of glances at a map of the area surrounding the fort during James' tour of it and as long as they kept walking away from the fort sooner or later they were bound to find there way to the town.

XXX XXX XXX XXX

It turned out to take a little longer than either had expected, but by around noon the next day the two had reached Ryube and managed to find everything they needed: a pair of backpacks, another couple of knives for general purposes, and a few days worth of whatever rations there were to buy.

However as they were walking past the village square a loud shout easily made itself heard above ordinary villiage chatter.

"YOU!" Both turned around and saw that a small crowd was looking half at him with anticipation and half at the figure pointing in his direction.

"Figure" was in deed the only way to describe "it" (though his voice had a masculine gruffness to it) however much time spent examining it. The figure wore a drab grey coat and pants, but what truly stood out about him was that his entire face was wrapped in white cloth. The figure took another step forward his finger never wavering.

"To preform a true test of my skill I need not just a willing subject but one who has the strength of character to match my skill. My inner eye sees that you posses such courage, would you not assist me in a quick performance? You will come to no harm or else I am not the Blind Knifeman!"

Riou gulped slightly, the last thing he wanted to do was draw attention to himself, but he couldn't see any way not to, either becomming a part of this show that everyone was watching, or making everyone remeber tha the had left Ryube in a hurry.

"Fine." He stepped forward and the Blind Knifeman easily motioned towards a tree that was part of the center of the village.

"Before you stand against it, please hand over your possession to my assistant Myst, and give me a moment, to discover your height, for while the inner eye can see someone's character, paltry details like height must be left up to my hands." Myst was a tall woman wearing an outfit of filmy white tinged with red.

Her hair was a reddish brown color that was tied in a pony tail in back and fell forward in bangs in front. She was just coming to an end of a dance for the amusement of the crowd, and breezed right by Riou snatching the backpack from his shoulders without significantly slowing down. True to his words the Blind Knifeman placed his hands against the tree as Riou stood with his back to them and slowly lowered them till they came into contact with something other than bark.

"Ahh, excellent, Myst, let us begin with something simple so that my assistant will not fear when I truly test my skill, I think the watermelon will do." With surprising ease Myst hefted the large watermelon in her hands from a table full of various fruits nearby. She placed it on Riou's head causing him to sage slightly at first but eventually he managed to accommodate himself to it's presence.

"Watch closely for you do not know the true value of your eyes till you have lost them!" The Blind Knifeman threw his weapon and it landed smack dab in the middle of the watermelon causing bits of red fruit to fly off like blood from a wounded soldier. Myst removed the watermelon from Riou's head and returned to the table.

"What next?"

"The pumpkin, that should do nicely."

In a few moments Riou was now standing with a pumpkin on his head as the Blind Knifeman once again went through the flourishes of slowly drawing, pulling back, and then finally throwing his knife. Of course the fact that it once again went right into the fruit and no where near Riou's head (at least as nowhere near as was possible in the situation) made him bregudge those flourishes a little less. As long as the knifes kept going into his targets and not his semiwillling assistant everything seemed relatively good.

"Still nothing but a warm up, the bananas!" These were nowhere near as heavy but took a bit of adjusting to get them to balance correctly on Riou's head. The knife went through not one, but two bananas before it finally stopped. The Blind Knifeman was quite pleased with his work, evidently able to tell the difference between a knife striking flesh and striking fruit by the sound alone.

"Excellent. Now then, a true test of my skill and my assistants courage, the apple."

Riou made sure not to shake as Myst placed the oh so small target on his head. Riou doubted he was the only person who closed their eyes as the knife left its master's hand headed in his general direction. Thankfully he was able to open them and slowly turn around seeing that the knife had gone right through the apple, and pinned it to the tree he had been standing against. The Blind Knifeman was meanwhile basking in his audience's applause and amazement at his skill.

"Thank you, thank you, but please at least half of your praise is due to my assistant who tested something that you must be born with rather than acquire practice." Riou stood up and bowed having no real other choice in the matter.

XXX XXX XXX XXX XXX

Unfortunately Myst neglected to return his backpack to him as soon as he had finished using his head as a resting place for object her partner was going to use for target pratice. In fact, she incorporated it into her next dance, spinning it around her wildly as she moved.

Not wanting to disrupt the show Riou and Jowy just waited around till the two finished, and finally once the crowd had left the two a reasonable amount of money for their performance did Riou finally confront them.

"I'd like my backpack back." The Blind Knifeman extended his hand and Myst passed the item in question to him.

"Of course, it is only polite to give someone what is their's. However, my inner eye tells me that there is a much greater service that I can do for you two. Do you have intentions of crossing the boarder between Jowston and Highland?" Riou wasn't sure what to say, but Jowy blustered out exactly what he was thinking.

"How can you know that?" The Blind Knifeman made a few random motions with his hands, and of course his face displayed no emotion.

"When I was but a young boy, barely weened form my mothers teat, there was a horrible disaster. It left me as you see me today, unable to see or even so much as feel the touch of another being's hand upon my own. But it also imparted onto me the power of the inner eye which shows me not what someone looks like, but who someone is.

You two are both seeking to return to home, across the boarder. It is something you will not achieve on your own, The last thing the guards at the mountain pass would do is simply let two boys through without good reason. After all they might be Highland spies, however we are well known travellers who have been pedaling our trade long enough in these parts, and the guards would less us pass along with our two 'apprentices' if you care to travel with us. It is an arrangement which would benefit us both."

"Sure." Jowy scowled at him, but he ignored it, it only made sense that there was strength in numbers.

"Excellent, in that case you may think of me simply as Blind and as you already know this is my companion Myst." Myst laughed gayly for a moment at her introduction. "I was going to call myself 'The Mystic Maiden' but travelling in Blind's company, one mouthful per introduction is more than enough."

Myst gave a quick flip of her mane of hair with a small twist of her neck between her first and second sentence. "I must admit Blind your premonitions do seem to be getting more accurate all the time. I was quite put out when you said that we'd need to purchase two extra horses when we arrived here. I'll just think of this the next time I wonder about one of your crazy vision of the future I'll remember this and shut my mouth!"

True enough there were four tied up horses near the town's inn that the two untied the knots on. Granted it might just be a little bit of horse thievery that was going on with a very serene air about it, but after a moments considered Riou realized as a member of Highland's army who had been taken prison and escaped, he was already on the wrong side of the law.

XXX XXX XXX XXX

The State guards took one look at the odd group and then crossed their arms. "Who exactly do you think you are? We have orders not to let anyone cross into Highland." The group temporarily dismounted and Blind stepped forward very slowly a noticeable air of menace about him.

"I do not think the issues lies in I knowing who I am, but in you knowing who I am. Myst hide the younglings eyes, I do not wish the sight of my deformity to fall on those who have not earned such a punishment." Riou turned around and with a little prompting later from Myst Jowy did as well. Both of them heard the sound of several rolls of cloth striking the ground and then the stammering voice of the guards.

"Ohh my..."

"Of course we'll let you through..."

By the time Myst took her hands off their shoulders and allowed them to turn around Blind was giving the last tug on wrappings of cloth around his right hand. The guards parted and the procession of four horses went on their way.

XXX XXX XXX

They remained unmolested for the rest of their journey. Several times Riou thought he saw odd shapes moving in the mists surrounding the mountains, but all of them apparently took one look at the four of them and backed off. If they were human bandits they obviously felt that the four wouldn't be worth the trouble when they clearly had little more than enough food to get by on them.

If they were monsters... Riou would just as soon not consider what that meant about the powers of Blind's "inner eye". But still they managed to make it to the gates of Kyaro city much sooner than they thought they would, so they bid Blind and Myst goodbye and took off on foot. Riou to see his sister and Jowy to see his entire family.

XXX XXX XXX

Riou found his sister in the backyard of what was had become more or less his house after their adopted father Geneku had died, she was kneeling before his grave. Not wanting to break her concentration he approached as slowly as he possible. Only once she started to rise from her crouch he dare to speak a couple of works.

"Hey, I'm back." Nanami turned around, and leapt at Riou driving him to the ground.

"Riou I'm so glad to see that your safe because I heard a horrible rumor that the Unicorn Brigade was all killed, but I knew you'd make it out somehow!" Her voice was more high pitched and frantic than normal, her brown hair whipping about her face as she continuned to all but mindlessly babble her words.

"They said that there was this horrible State spy that betrayed everyone to Jowston and might as well have slit all their throats himself! Of course I remember hearing somewhere that spies always work as a pair something like that old expression thick as thieves you know? Is Jowy all right, he must be all right, I can see it in your face, if he wasn't okay you'd be a lot sadder since you two have been friends practically since you both could walk..."

Riou discovered that he much preferred his sister's quick ramblings and rapid shaking of his shoulders to this sudden and extremely ackward silence that now filled the air between them. But before Riou could get a word in edgewise she was back to the races.

"That couldn't be! You and Jowy, spies? Never! Right? I mean you've spent your entire life in Highland why would you suddenly betray me, Kyaro town, and everyone you ever knew? You couldn't! Could you?" Riou began to gesture at his throat since the hands formerly on the fringes of his jacket had moved slightly and in turn he was now finally finding it slightly harder to breath. The hands finally withdrew and Riou was glad to see that Nanami was finally waiting for him to respond.

"Well it is a bit hard to explain exactly what happenned. You're right there was a surprise attack, and I'm pretty sure me and Jowy were the only ones who got out alive... But State wasn't the ones behind it, Highland was." There was another long pause in the conversation during which Riou expected to once again find himself being shaken about far worse than had been during the horse ride home. Nanami refrained however, just sitting on her knees looking at him with her large open brown eyes.

"Why would Highland attack the Unicorn Brigade?" Riou took another deep breath before launching into a reasonable rendition of events. His plans for going home, the surprise attack, the climb, the jump, his capture, Jowy rescuing him (he left out their first failed attempt at escape) and their trek back. Nanami listened patiently through all of it before finally responding.

"Well then what are you doing here?" Riou coughed in surprise not actually ready to voice displeasure with this particular view of the journey he had taken to get home and see her. Nanami laughed at her own expence as well and then corrected herself.

"Sorry Riou, it's just that Captain Rowd has been hanging around town asking if anyone has seen you. I'm glad to know that you made it back in one piece, but now that I know why, it seems like you put yourself in some unnecessary danger." Riou spluttered a bit more before he managed to respond.

"I kind of did that already when I agreed to join the Unicorn Brigade. I'm a soldier now, for better or for worse." Nanami looked over at the tombstone of their adopted father for a moment.

"Sorry, it's just it's hard for me to forget the scared look on your face the time that you fell out of the tall tree not far from here." Riou had to been too young when he was adopted to remember his real parents so he had not wished to know anything about them very often. He had however wished he had been adopted into a family without any female siblings who were older than he was several times, and now proved to be another.

"Listen, if you're that worried about me then I'll get out of town right now and march back across the boarder and give myself up to State soldiers guarding the border. It's just that I couldn't let you think I was dead, or a traitor, or whatever Rowd said about me." The idea of going back into captivity didn't seem that pleasant to him, but it was better than death.

"Thanks, you always had a good head on your shoulders. I'll get my stuff and at the very least I can walk with you to our side of the boarder. Maybe when the war is truly over I'll be able to join you."

"Yeah." Riou had neglected to mention anything to do with how someone could use the Unicorn Brigade incident to make sure the war didn't get to be well and truly over for a very long time. All of a sudden Nanami got off her knees and stood up.

"We need to warn Jowy that Rowd is in town! Let's go find him!" Riou got up as well heading for the backdoor into the house, but before he so much as touched the knob he found himself being dragged in the opposite direction.

"I nearly forgot, you haven't prayed at Genku's grave yet!" Riou doubted that he had time for such rituals, but he also knew better than to argue with his older sister. So he uttered a quick prayer for protection, and the safety of all those he cared about to the protective spirit of his, well ancestor in law or whatever. Then he stood back up, and by the time he did Nanami already had her staff in hand. Unlike Jowy's it was not one single piece of wood, but three joined together by wire within that allowed her to attack in a great many ways.

"Okay then, now we can go." Unfortunately they didn't manage to go very far, it seemed like the very moment they had walked out of the house they found Rowd waiting for them with a dozen other soldiers.

"Heh, the bird that flies the coop always returns to the nest sooner or later." Riou staired at Rowd glad that he was wearing his weapons.

"Captain..." Rowd showed absolutely no emotion on his face however, and Riou suddenly remembered the image of the Unicorn Brigade's commander with a bloodied sword. If there hadn't been anyone from State anywhere near the campsite then whose blood it was suddenly become a very pertinent question.

"Arrest both of them, the traitor and the girl." The soldiers advanced and Nanami got a good grip on her staff, however before she could do anything Riou glared at her and then lowered his hands. Against that many trained soldiers they had no chance anyway, and if she fought back Nanami would get dragged into Riou's problems as well.

"Fine, since you clearly feel like you needed to bring so many guys just to arrest two kids, we'll go with you."

XXX XXX XXX X

Rowd and the soldiers lead both Riou and Nanami to a cell deep within the Highland base's barracks in Kyaro. This was a true cell unlike what James had put him in, metal bars ran horizontally all along it, and the door had several stout iron locks attached to the opposite side of the door so that even they had lockpicks they couldn't actually put them to use. There was no bed, only hard rock walls to lean against. Jowy was waiting for them as Rowd pushed them in and slammed the door shut behind them.

"Don't worry you won't have to wait long. I'll see that your executed before nightfall." If looks could kill Jowy's glower would have smote Rowd twice over.

"I suppose you expect us to be thankful for that?" Rowd smiled at them, Riou had no doubts that it was always easy to smile from that side of a cell.

"It's nothing personal, I even thought you two had the makings of fine soldiers. It's just that as long as your alive and insist on telling people the 'truth' about what happened to the Unicorn Brigade, you are a thorn in Prince Luca Blight's side, and if we are not loyal to our rulers what are we but savages?"

Riou was certainty starting to feel quite a bit savage himself, and Nanami more than a bit.

"So your going to kill us just because some well bred mucky muck told you to?" As she spoke she grabbed hold of two of the cells bars as if trying to shake them lose.

"Of course not. Like I said the 'truth' of the Highland Unicorn Brigade will die with you quite soon. When it does the reality of the events will be that the United City State of Jowston was behind the vicious and deplorable actions.

Prince Luca Blight will charismaticaly step forward to avenge this nation's fallen children and put Jowston to sword and torch. All of Highland will rally behind him revitalized by finally having not only victory but a cause to seek further victories. Best of all, even though they 'struck first' Jowston will have no warning when Prince Blight falls on them like the wrath of the gods.

Of course in volunteering my brigade for his purposes the Price will appoint me to a position worthy of my skills rather than looking after children. In return for your arrogance in refusing to die that night you will not be remembered as heroes but as traitors, and you will still not change things in the slightest." Riou wanted so much to wack that smile off of Rowd's face but since he couldn't do it with his tonfas he would have to find another way.

"General Alexander Diamondclaw knows everything. I told him the day after I escaped you. You can kill us but he already knows what Luca is up to." Rowd looked both ways but no one else was anywhere nearby. He reached through the cell bars trying to grab hold of Riou who wisely took a couple steps back further into the cell.

"You pathetic piece of scum! See, I was right you are a traitor to the Highland cause! I'll enjoy seeing you hang!" Then Rowd regained his composure and pulled back.

"It still maters not, besides Jowston's generals are but children compared to Highland's, even forewarned, they won't be able to stand against us!" Nanami suddenly had a sparkle in her eyes.

"Alexander Diamondclaw!" She practically shouted the name though to her it might as well been a chant from some kind of primitive language. But the way it made Rowd quiver and twitch made it clear that the chant had some power behind it. Jowy from the very back of the cell eagerly joined in.

"Alexander Diamondclaw!"

"Alexander Diamondclaw!"

"ALEXANDER DIAMONDCLAW!" The last was a shout of all three together and finally Rowd could take it no more.

"SHUT UP!" His entire face was a study of a man who was near the end of his extremely frayed rope.

"We'll see how smart your mouths are when we have a noose around each of your necks." Then he stalked out of the dungeon doing his best not to look over his shoulder. Nanami let out a shallow laugh.

"Well at least that gave him some, if not hardly even half of what he disserved..." Jowy meanwhile was still sitting against the back of the cell looked away from the bar that kept the three in..

"It must be nice to do things as a family." All of a sudden Riou saw the sullen resentment of a prisoner melt off Jowy's face to be replaced with true sadness.

"My father. My own father wouldn't hear me out, he said after what I did I wasn't part of the family any more, and my younger brother agreed with him. They wouldn't even let my mother see my face. You don't know how well you have it Riou, Nanami may not be related to you but evidently she decided not to give up on you.

My own flesh and blood would had preferred I'd let my flesh and blood got smeared all over the side of a burning tent so that they could hold the could tell everyone they knew how their son died a noble hero. I'm nothing to them but a fucking shogi piece to be moved about and sacrificed for their own gain!" Riou and Nanami both joined Jowy at the far end of the cell. In comforting their friend through his loss they could momentarily forget about their own shared fate.

XXX XXX XXX

About an hour after Riou and Jowy had entered into Kyaro city Blind and Myst were letting their horses drink from a nearby stream. Both of them were looking towards the water and seeing very different things in it.

"You were right, that went off much smoother than I expected it to. If they had been any judge of horseflesh they should have been able to tell the difference between the nags poor travellers could afford and our military steeds." Blind very slowly reached for the end of the cloth strung around his right hand and began to undue it.

"You shouldn't have been worried, I can still remember when I was as young and nieve as those boys were." Myst scooped both of her hands through the water and splashed her face with it.

"You still are, in one way at least, trust me on this one. So when do you think we should head back there if we want to get what is coming to us?" As the folds of cloth came away, an inhuman appendage was revealed.

"Let's let the horses finish recovering and then we'll head out." Meanwhile as dropplets water made its way down Myst's face, her hair color went with them in a coppery cascade.

XXX XXX XXX

True enough to his words not so very much longer (three hours at most) later Rowd and a great many soldiers came for them. Rowd slowly opened the door before thrusting accusing fingers at Riou and Jowy.

"You two are coming with us. We have to make a prime example out of those who would dare to betray the Highland cause, as for your shared friend, we'll eventually get around to giving her a much less public death, as befits a lady."

Nanami tried to force her way out of the cell as the soldiers dragged the two young men but had a couple of them easily held her back. Rowd closed the door and locked it again before he began to head out of the dungeon the soldiers making sure that their captives kept up with whatever pace he chose.

XXX XXX XXX

Riou wondered how exactly actually hanging could be worse than the process that was leading him towards being hung. Being forced to walk down the main street of his home down watching countless people screaming, cursing, spitting and hurling rotten fruits at him and Jowy. People who he had grown up with and at any other time would have considered friends.

Then they were lead to the scaffold that had apparently been constructed just in those two's honor. It was a monstrous, thing, apparently they wanted anyone from anywhere in the town to be able to see the executions which were about to occur. It had to be at least seven feet off the ground, and as they were lead up they were greeted with the sight of an actual executioner.

He was a tallish man with extremely well muscled arms who looked like could have just simply throttled Riou and Jowy with his bare hands. He wore a black hood which made it hard to even tell the exact color of his eyes. The soldiers made sure that they stood in the right places on top of the trapdoors that would swing away when the two quite evident levers were pulled.

Riou had never seen someone hanged before but the process was quite self evident, especially when you were the hangee. There was a great deal of slack in the rope put around his neck, but he doubted there would be enough to let his feet touch the ground below. and the knot put around his throat was already making it hard to breath.

But before the event itself could take place the crowd parted to let a woman through. Before Riou could even formulate the obvious question it was answered by a one of the soldiers.

"Make way for her royal highness, Princess Jilia Blight!" The woman slowly walked to Rowd's side and then looked up at Riou and Jowy.

"These are the two spies? But they're so young..." On closer inspection Riou noticed that the princess didn't look to be much older than he was, but now was obviously not the time to comment on such. Rowd nodded of course proudly tapping one of the wooden supports of the scaffold.

"Yes these are they. Do not let your heart soften at the sight of them, traitors to our nation can come in all shapes and sizes." Jowy apparently had a little looser noose than Riou did, or he wasn't worried about trying to stay conscious.

"You jackass Rowd! We didn't betray the nation of Highland, Highland betrayed us!" The executioner whacked Jowy upside the head with one of his hands and it apparently knocked him silly if not quite senseless. Jilia slowly nodded and then walked away, the soldiers parting at once, and as she got back into an impressive looking carriage and took off some of the soldiers began to start up a drum beat.

"Do you have any last words?" Nothing appropriately mature came to Riou's mind.

XXX XXX XXX

Rowd up looked up at the sky, and smiled.

"Enjoy the sunset, it will be your last." His smiled widened as he examined the orange ball that was slowly sinking downwards.

"For too long my triumphant rise to greatness has been halted by this assignment so far beneath one of my stature. Now with you traitors out of the way I will become Prince Luca Blight's right hand man. He and I are alike, for we are both men destined for greatness..."

All of a sudden Rowd's world spun and he found himself face down in the dirt. An annoyingly chipper voice assaulted his ears finally breaking him out of his revelry.

"WHOOO WEEEE I hooked a big one this time Mirri!"

XXX XXX XXX

Riou looked over at Jowy and then over at the man wearing a black hood with his hand on the two levers.

"Friends to the end?" Jowy managed to pull his eyes away form those levers to look Riou in the eyes.

"Yeah." Unfortunately Riou couldn't help but letting his eyes wander back to those levers even as he was trying to look at his friend, those lever which would be bringing a perminant end to their friendship.

The man pulled both the levers at the exact same moment. Riou closed his eyes, felt the platform drop out beneath him, and felt the sudden shock of pain that he had expected. But for some reason it had occurred in the wrong part of his body. He opened his eyes and discovered why... Both he and Jowy were now sitting down on the dirt below the scaffold.

Jowy was no longer wearing a noose around his neck and when he checked his own throat it was now equally unadorned. Without thinking he rolled himself to the side out from under the scaffold so that he could see what was going on. Once he had done so he was presented with an interesting tableau. James and Mirri were standing on the scaffold, and Mirri currently had the executioner in a choke hold. Despite the disparity in size Mirri apparently had no trouble at all restraining her captive.

"You people came to see an execution, and believe me you will. You have been judged by not by a mortal king, but by the divine eyes of the twenty seven True Runes, and found wanting. This heartless monster who would execute children will be the first!" Then Mirri bit into the man's neck, and he instantly went limp, followed by her tossing him into the crowd of soldiers.

There was a bright flash of light and when it finally died away all that was left of several of "Highland's finest" was a smoking hole in the ground. Those who were still in the condition to fight, turned and ran at once with the exception of Rowd who seemed too frightened to even do that. James meanwhile was working like mad, he sliced both Riou and Jowy's nooses which were still hanging form the gallows.

Looking closely Riou could see that the nooses themselves already had another slash in them. He could guess how they had gotten there, James must have thrown a pair of knives cutting them as the lever was pulled. The nay-kobold sheathed that pair of knives, grabbed the two nooses he tied them together throwing in a few more quick knots that made it come to an end with a much larger loop. James tossed the two nooses and they went over Rowd's head and then he around his chest. A quick tug later and Rowd was yanked off his feet.

"WHOOO WEEEE I hooked a big one this time Mirri!" Rowd attempted to crawl away but he was wasting his time, his captor casually kept pulling at the rope like he was doing nothing more difficult then making sure a fish didn't get back into the water with its last desperate thrashes.

"So James do you think that was too melodramatic? After all they weren't so much found guilty of being bad people as found guilty of being in an army fighting against ours."

James put a little bit more effort into pulling the rope nodded along with his partners words.

"Yeah, but it isn't the first time we've had to kill people for that reason. Besides, anyone who would help hang totally innocent kids, yecch, I'm not terribly saddened to see em go. So what do you say we do with this one?" Mirri grabbed hold of the rope and began to shorten Rowd's 'leash" by looping the ends of it over the gallows.

"Well he may seem like a big one to you, but considering the entire ocean he's just a small fish. Why don't we throw him back, metaphorically speaking of course, let's make sure that the bigger fish get their snack." Mirri helped James pull on the rope now and Rowd soon found himself hanging upside down from the gallows as James and Mirri finished tying several more knots to make sure that he was hanging just the right height above the ground so as to be unable to help himself in any way.

"You won't get away with this, Highland won't stand for it! Whoever you people are, your days are numbered!" James jumped up to the top of the scaffold and gave the rope binding Rowd a tight jerk. This caused him to start swaying back and forth even faster than he had been before.

"We're Prophets of Destruction, we don't care who the hell we're pissing off unless they're the ones who hold our contracts. Your at war with those people, so this is probably gonna earn us a nice bonus. Have fun swinging now loser, I'm sure you'll be doing it in a different way when they find out you couldn't even manage to properly slaughter a couple of kids." James jumped down and landed next to Riou without showing any kind of reaction the impressive vertical distance he travelled in that jump.

"Hey Riou, feeling any better? You know what they say 'no noose is good noose!'" Mirri jumped down as well, unlike James halfway down she suddenly stopped falling like a human being and started doing it like a leaf in a gentle wind, landing next to James without so much as kicking up a cloud of dust.

"James you make that joke every single time we break up a lynching, hanging, swinging, or otherwise. Both of you able to stand all right?" It had been a great many years since Riou had fallen out of that tree and cried whatever his sister had to say on the issue. His sister... in his good fortune Riou had for a few moments been simply caught up in the spectacle that these two had created and then his own surprise at the fact that apparently he was going to keep on living.

"Nanami, my sister, we have to go rescue her!"

"Already done." Mirri sad it as materafactly as if she was checking off items she had been sent to purchase in a store.

"We've got some horses waiting for us outside the towns walls and she's with them." Riou turned his eyes in the direction of the town's walls.

"And how exactly are we going to get to them, Rowd has to have guards stationed at all every exit to the city." James crouched slightly before Riou.

"You obviously never seen a nay-kobold jump before kid. Grab me about the neck, try not to step on my tail, and hold on tight." Riou did, James rose slightly got a running start and jumped. Riou had seen cats jump before. Not often, but he had seen the way that they could sail through the air after butterflies or whatever occupied their interest.

They reached heights and clear distances that no human could comparatively hope to achieve. James outdid even Riou's estimates easily reaching the top of the nearby item store. Mirri landed next to him a moment later with Jowy holding onto her neck. James got another running start and leapt, and Riou discovered it was best to close his eyes and not think about what might happen if he did lose his grip in mid jump.

Inside five such mighty leaps James and Mirri came down outside the cities gates, not just near their horses but actually landing right in their mounts' saddles.

"Rowd's gonna be tied up for a bit, and everyone's gonna be going be embarking on a vampire hunt so we should be across the boarder before they can even organize a search party for us. Get back on your horses James and I can double up so the three of you have your own."

There was something odd about Mirri's words and it struck Riou as he got off of James' horse and Mirri got on while he went towards the only currently unoccupied animal. It was "his" horse in the sense that it was the exact same one that he had ridden across the boarder to Highland with Blind and Myst.

"How?" James gave his horses' reins a snap.

"We don't have to set that brisk a pace, but every journey starts with the first step. Let's take one of those now since we can talk once we're moving." Nanami glanced back at the only city that all three of them had considered home for their entire lives.

"Do you think we'll ever come back?" Riou grabbed the reins and gave them a light snap to get the horse going.

"Yeah. We'll all be back to Kyaro some day, But you can never come back to some place you don't leave first..."

FN: For those who don't know Shogi, is a Japanese game that you could consider their equivalent of chess.

By the way, in case your wondering what happens to Rowd it goes something like this...

General Seed: (Looking at Rowd who is still swining back and forth) Boy, you screwed up but good.

Rowd: GET ME DOWN FROM HERE!

Seed: I'm not doing it. You've been swinging around so long you might end up vommiting on my outfit. You, private with the armor and the face, go cut him down!


	4. Chapter 4

Ronin Trip

FN: Before I start up this chapter I've got a few things to say.

First I'm sorry about letting this story lay fallow for so long I had not forgotten it, I had just been unable to bring myself to continue writing it because I got wrapped up in other stuff like my job.

Now however I've got a firm dedication to at the very least finish posting this "book" and probably the others I've written as well.

The good news is that since it's been so long since I wrote these stories before I'm posting any more of them I'll take the time to rewrite them with the advantage of what I've learned about writing since I originally wrote them, hopefully making them a noticeably superior product to what came before. Also as another way of showing how I've changed things up from now on I'm going to do chapter titles based on song lines once again instead of random bits of important sounding garbage.

Enjoy!

Book Two: Wild dogs and hunting wolves

Chapter four: Are we verging on an answer, or f**king up our life?

The ride back was as uneventful as the ride to Kyaro town. It was also extremely obvious why. Not long after they took off, a trio of overzealous wolves came howling out of the mist towards their horses. Mirri promptly turned in their direction and let lose with one well placed growl of her own. No domestic canine could have reacted more quickly than the wolves did.

They promptly skidded to a stop, let lose with a pathetic wine and then slinked off back into the mist from which they had come. Mirri had taken the three surprised looks she had gotten from her traveling companions (minus James) in good grace.

"They know their place in the world, unlike three other beings I could mention." The vampire stated calmly.

Riou refrained from meeting her glance and instead turned to other questions that had been bothering him.

"Nanami, how did James and Mirri manage to get you out of the dungeon?" He inquired.

Nanami laughed rather shyly before she decided to respond with words.

"Well I actually did most of the work myself. After they took you back a soldier came to the cell, and I used the special kick that I had been taught only to use in very dire circumstances and it worked just like Genkaku said it would! He dropped to his knees and started crying and wheezing like he couldn't breath at all!" She gushed.

Riou knew exactly what the "special kick" entailed and decided that considering either of the two possible reasons why a soldier would enter Nanami's cell, he obviously deserved every bit of it.

"After that I raced out, because it seemed like all the soldiers had already left and so I didn't run into much trouble, I even managed to get our weapons back. When I got outside I started thrashing every single soldier I could find trying to make my way towards the gallows.

But I wasn't moving near fast enough since I ended up constantly getting into fights with regular people as well who I couldn't just drop the way I did the soldiers, they're our neighbors, or at least they used to be after all. I was even getting into a little trouble with a group of them when suddenly Mirri dropped down on them and took them all out in a couple of seconds. She knew some moves that even Master Genkaku never got around to showing me!" The brown haired girl explained.

The vampire didn't blush at the praise but Riou suspected it might have something to do with a lack of blood to go around. Of course his sister noticed not at all and just went on with her story.

"She asked me what I was doing trying to fight my way through a packed crowd and I told her that if they were trying to get between me and you two that I'd find someway to make her regret it even if she was already dead! But then she told me that she was out to save you as well and that I should head to some horses they already had ready for an escape so I didn't get in the way. Since I wasn't having that much luck I did, and that's where I was when you four got back." She finished sound quite pleased with herself.

Riou nodded along, he hadn't been truly interested in the story, just knowing that Nanami was safe was enough. Of course there was another story that those present could tell that he was very interested in.

"And why exactly do you two have the exact same horses that Blind and Myst had?" He asked his combination rescuers and captors.

Mirri and James exchanged a look (not an easy thing to do when your both riding on the same horse) and then broke into long uproarious laughter. Mirri eventually managed to get over hers first.

"You two might have been able to cut it in the Unicorn Brigade but you've a lot to learn about real warfare. Put the following facts together and tell me what you come up with: Highlands wants you dead, Highland is most likely starting up the war with Jowston, we work for Jowston, you guys have vital evidence for rallying support both internally and externally for Jowston, you escaped on foot, we followed you horses, have I sent any sparks flying yet?" She pointed out in a patronizing tone of voice.

Jowy grasped what it most likely meant first.

"You two were Blind and Myst?" Jowy exclaimed in shock.

James nodded enthusiastically.

"See, not so hard to figure out the problem once you put everything you know in context is it?" The nay-kobold sounded like he was praising a pet for having figure out to jump through an especially high hoop.

Of course figuring out the answer to that problem only lead to about a dozen more question for Riou.

"That's impossible. There's no way someone who can see just find could throw knives as accurately as Blind did, and vampires always have red eyes!" He protested.

James reached into his jacket and pulled out a knife and then "flipped" it to Riou so that it went sailing by him with the hilt in easy arms reach.

"You saw me plenty of times with my jacket open, I was a little worried that one of you would notice that 'we' both used the same brand. Granted there's no knife better for fighting or throwing than an Ishikawa so I could have explained it away as simply a sign of our shared expertise in selecting weapons.

As for the 'sight' and 'red eyes' Mirri would you care to answer?" James explained before tossing the second half of the question to his partner.

She didn't shy away from the offer either.

"Consider the following. A tiger has orange and black stripes in a green forest, why? Because the eyes are funny things. When I'm wearing my normal white and black outfit, my red eyes stand out causing you to notice them. When I had hair close to the same color as my eyes, and tinges of red on my clothing as they went upwards, the color of my eyes don't stand out as much." Mirri said.

"Myst's hair was nothing like yours!" Jowy countered, neither he nor Riou quite ready to believe what they had been told.

Mirri reached into the horses saddle bags and pulled out a comb.

"Have you ever seen one of these? If you haven't I'm sure your sister has, they exist so that women can change the style and shape of their hair." She joked.

Riou had seen combs before, but Mirri's allegation was far from the first thing she had said that could be taken as an insult.

"Not just the style, but Myst' hair was longer, especially the bangs." He reminded her.

Mirri casually twirled a finger above her face, and then all of a sudden her hair grew longer till she was twirling her own hair.

"Another advantage to being a vampire, no such thing as a bad hair day, length and style I can change as easily as you blink your eyes. I can even wear it really long if I want..." As she spoke Mirri's hair proceeded to grow longer and longer in back until it went as far down her as it could and began to make it's way along the horses body falling over its tail.

"But if I wear it like that I'd be tripping over it every other step I took, that's why I keep it shorter, it's efficient and to the point." Mirri's hair then retracted even more quickly as it had grown.

"Oh and don't even get started on how Myst was shorter than me. A few inches are nothing to a vampire either." She threw in for good measure.

That settled all of Riou's questions concerning "Myst" but there was still one that remained about her partner.

"Fine, but James, how did you manage to throw knives that well without being able to see?" Riou wanted to know. James held out a hand and twisted it as best as he could to have it point towards Mirri.

"She's the reason I could. When a vampire drinks some of your blood they gain the ability to transfer images into your mind, those images can be more fantastical than any fever dream, or they can be as real as what she's seeing through her own eyes. So sad as I am to say it, yes I couldn't have done all that fancy knife work without a pair of open eyes, they just didn't have to be my own." He commented without hesitation.

They had managed to answer all the questions involving the "how" of the matter but the "why" was still unknown.

"Okay then. So you guys got to Ryube ahead of us by ridding horses, and set up your disguises, I've got that. But why not just grab us by the scruff of our necks and drag us back to Alexander right then instead of letting us go home?" Riou wanted to know.

Mirri allowed her hair to grow out again till there was enough of it to wrap around her neck in a mock noose.

"Simple. Because why simply drag you back kicking and screaming, when we can pull you back bitter and broken shells of the people you once were, who have had their belief in the basic human decency shattered like a cheap vase beneath a boulder?

Not meaning to be cruel, just for cruelty's sake, but we figured since Highland had tried to kill you once, they'd do it again. At which point we could show up and be the big goddamn heroes who save the day and your lives. Which in turn would make you more likely to accept our offer to keep you alive." Mirri rattled off the words without a hint of emotion.

The worst part about what she'd said was that she was right. Riou could think of no objection to raise and so his lips snapped shut. Jowy was also being unusually quite, but he suspected it was probably because he had lost a lot more in Kyaro then Riou had.

All things considered Riou had actually managed to gain something from his return since now if he was an exile from Highland, at least Nanami was also. If they were isolated from just about all they knew, they were in isolation together.

Aren't you going to thank them?" Speaking of Nanami, her words broke him out of revelry.

Riou looked at his sister who cocked her head to make sure that he had heard correctly.

"What?" He muttered in confusion.

"They did just save you and Jowy from hanging. It's very least you could do to say 'thank you' to them for that." She informed him in irritation.

After another contest of wills which predictably Riou lost he turned back to his rescuers.

"Thank you, both of you, for saving me, my best friend and my sister." Riou admitted, half mumbling, half spitting the words out.

James just laughed happily at his compliment regardless of how sincere (or not) it was.

"No problem. Trust me, we didn't have to work very hard." He admitted freely.

With that out of the way and eager to forget their current troubles Riou, Nanami, and Jowy spent the rest of the trip back across the boarder reminiscing about the good and bad times that they had shared in Kyaro village.

XXXX XXXX XXXX

They had needed to stop at Ryube for the night, or what few hours were left of it after a very long ride. Riou was barely able to keep his eyes open and hadn't even seriously noticed the way that his legs ached before making it to one of the inn's beds and collapsing into it. He woke up still groggy but he felt fairly awake by the time that their horses finally returned to the mercenary base.

The journey went much more quickly when your horse was doing all the work and you could take the main roads rather than trying to avoid them. The guards at the mercenary fort's gate needed only one look at James and Mirri before making the doors swing open. As they came through James let out a triumphant shout.

"We're back with the prisoners, and we even managed to pick up an extra one!" He proclaimed to everyone within earshot.

Riou eased himself off the horse and partially expected Alexander Diamondclaw to walk out of the fort's front door. However the answer to James' question came from someone much more nearby. A woman who had been working on what seemed like a normal garden, possibly for the purpose of providing food for the mercenaries stood up.

She had blond hair and blue eyes and was wearing an ordinary enough green outfit.

"James military discipline means not bellowing your after action report to everyone on our side the moment you return." She stated in a calm but disapproving voice.

Riou could tell at once that this woman was important, all of the other mercenaries seemed to typically be of the opinion that James and Mirri could do no wrong.

From the familiar tone she used to address them Riou guessed she had to be another Prophet of Destruction, and after racking his brain he could remember her image on the Queen of Hearts.

Mirri swung down from her horse with ease, showing none of the bow leggedness that Riou was still needed to walk off.

"Go easy on him Florence, no war has ever been lost by refusing to tell your own side how much ass you've just kicked. By the way, I'll never figure out why you bother getting your hands dirty growing that stuff the old fashion way." Mirri informed the other woman.

Florence placed her hands on her hips, neglecting to take off her still dirt flaked gloves.

"For the same reason you enjoy getting your hands dirty in blood Mirri. Now then, I'm glad to see you back, especially the prisoners. Not long after you left, a young girl, only about 8 if I'm any judge, managed to barley make her way here. She said her name was Pilika and she was looking for her Uncle Jowy who had gone south but wouldn't tell us anything else. We've managed to get her some food into her and set her up in the 'cell' we used for you two since it was empty.

You should probably go see her right away, I trust you won't need directions?" It was only with the last sentence she spoke that Florence truly unveiled her status as a Prophet of Destruction to the world.

There was no other good explanation for the way her words could feel like a knife in the gut, if not in the back. But he didn't have long to contemplate Florence, there were more important things to worry about. For the first time since the jail cell in Kyaro Jowy truly seemed to be awake and aware of what was going on around him.

Riou had to run as fast as he could to keep up with his friend as he bolted through the door, turned the corridor, raced down the stairs and headed for their previous place of imprisonment. So fast were the pair running that Riou was too busy keeping up to actually ask the question of who the girl was. Riou had certainly never heard of Jowy having any nieces, or if he did why they were living in Jowston.

Jowy eagerly threw the door to the cell open and the girl inside at once jumped off the bed and raced over to him. She had short brown hair and wide green eyes tinged with the red of one who had been shedding a great many tears.

"Uncle Jowy!" The girl cried out in surprise. She clung to Jowy's leg so tightly that it must have been causing him at least some discomfort but his face remained completely stoic none the less.

"Riou this is Pilika. It was her family that fished me from the river. They gave me the clothes I'm wearing now, and helped me get back on my feet. She insisted on calling me 'Uncle Jowy' since she didn't have any older brothers." As he spoke very slowly Jowy's eyes swung back to the young girl who had yet to loosen her grip on his leg.

"Pilika what are you doing here all by yourself? What happened to your parents?" He asked tenderly.

This innocent question made Pilika release a high pitched wail at first, and then a couple of fresh tears went down her face.

"A bad man came to our village! Mommy and daddy told me that I had to hide so I did! I hid really good and the bad man didn't find me! But when I stopped hiding, mommy, daddy, everyone in the village had icky red stuff on them and weren't moving! They wouldn't move no matter how loudly I cried! All the houses were ruined and there was a bad smell in the air, so I left to find you Uncle Jowy, I'm so glad to see your okay!" She pipped up with a strange mix of eagerness and hesitation.

Riou gulped loudly as did Jowy. They had never been in a battle themselves, but what Pilika had just described sounded worse than any battle.

"Was it bandits?" Jowy asked breathlessly. Pilika shook her head violently.

"No, daddy once told Pilika that bandits wear rumpled clothing, and have beards, the bad, bad man had dark hair and very shiny clothing, and the other bad men wore blue." She whimpered.

With the sort of tenderness that Riou had not only never seen but had never imagined that Jowy possessed he slowly rumpled Pilika's hair murmuring words slowly to her.

"It'll be okay Pilika. I know how it feels, I don't have a family any more either..." Jowy replied, his own voice quavering slightly.

Pilika let lose with a small cry and then looked up at Jowy with blurry eyes. "Uncle Jowy still has Pilika, doesn't he?" She pleaded with him.

Jowy nodded continuing to rub the young girls hair.

"That's right, and Pilika still has Uncle Jowy. In fact I'd like to introduce you to my friend, my best friend Riou." Jowy said while holding out a hand in said friend's direction.

Pilika slowly tore his eyes away from Jowy.

"You really are Uncle Jowy's best friend?" She asked while blinking back further tears.

Riou nodded not quite sure what to say and at once Pilika let go of Jowy and affixed herself to Riou's leg with her vice like grip.

"I'm so glad to meet you Uncle Riou!" She declared in the process.

With Pilika no longer looking at him, Jowy had no qualms about shooting Riou a smug look about his new predicament. Riou for his part was starting to rethink that maybe having only having to deal with older sisters wasn't such a bad thing after all. But he gave his best shot at it anyway, rubbing Pilika's hair as he had seen Jowy do.

"It'll be okay Pilika. I've lost someone important to me as well, but your parents spirits are still with you, they guided you here where we could find you again..." Riou spoke softly and in the most smoothing tone of voice he could summon.

Pilika slowly nodded and let go of Riou's leg and even managed a small smile.

"As long as I have Uncle Jowy and Uncle Riou everything will be okay..." She managed to get the words out slowly and force a smile to her face.

There was a loud cough and then Riou turned and saw James and Mirri standing around in their usual relaxed positions. As Riou was beginning to suspect was the status quo concerning serious matters, Mirri spoke for the two.

"Great to see her smile, but I think what she just said needs to be run past the general. One of you two will need to come with us, probably you Riou since the girl seems more attached to your friend." Mirri informed the two.

Riou nodded though he was surprised that this and not his escape was reason for him being brought before Alexander Diamondclaw.

XXX XXX XXX XXX

For the first time Riou saw all six Prophet's of Destruction in the flesh.. They had set up a square table in the command room with two chairs on each side of the square. Alexander and Florence were sitting on opposite sides of the table from either of the two chairs Riou could select from with upon his entering.

The way James and Mirri approached the other two open seats to the left of Alexander and Florence's made that fact quite clear. There were two more Prophets of Destruction who Riou hadn't seen before as also. Another man and a woman, seated next to each other to the right of Alexander.

The man wore a brown coat and pants with a red tie and a small portion of a navy blue shirt visible underneath the coat. In his brown gloved hands he held a weapon. It looked like a club upon first inspection, but it was most oddly shaped and a few parts of it glistened in a way which suggested they were obviously made of metal.

The glistening sparked Riou's memories of stories he heard a very long time ago, of the magnificent weapons that Harmonia possessed. They were called "guns" and were far more deadly in every way imaginary than any longbow (or any kind of bow) could ever hope to be.

The other woman was obviously an elf from her pointed ears. She had azure blue hair and was wearing clothing (including gloves) that matched. Her eyes were a deep brown, and her right hand held a coiled flail at the moment. Alexander looked him right in the eyes and spoke.

"Would you care to rephrase what Mirri has told me you heard?" He said, his tone of voice making it quite clear that this was anything but a request Riou could deny.

Riou wished it was Jowy who was having to deal with that question or that they had both been summoned. Either way, Jowy probably knew how to translate Pilika's style of speech better than Riou could himself. But he took a stab at it none the less.

"It sounded like someone wearing bright armor with dark hair burned down their village, and he had a lot of men dressed in blue with him. If you want me to take a random guess that certainly sounds like Prince Luca Blight.

If he'd come up with the idea for the killing of the Unicorn Brigade, children loyal to Highland, then I doubt there is anyone he would show mercy to. If he burned down a village on this side of the border, then he must be intent on stomping all over the most recent peace treaty, and is probably already heading this way right now.

After all, if he attacks Muse while you people hold this fort then he leaves himself open to a flanking attack." Riou concluded.

Alexander nodded and gave a very slight smile.

"Correct. We've already took precautions should Luca or anyone from Highland show up on our doorstep, but I've felt more comfortable about countless other positions I've held. This one is mostly staffed by mercenaries who probably are a couple cuts below Highland soldiers, and they outnumber us as well, not a pleasant situation. In short we can use every man we can get, so what do you say?" He asked while extending a open hands towards the room's youngest occupant.

Even with the hand gesture it took Riou a while to catch on.

"Wait, your asking me to join you, and fight Highland?" He spluttered in disbelief.

Alexander very clearly was not joking in any way shape or form.

"Yes. It makes sense if you bother to think about it. The Highland army has by your own admission burned down one village and they've also tried to personally hang you. That means it doesn't matter weather you're just a citizen of Jowston or Riou of the Unicorn Brigade, given a chance Highland will kill you either way.

In my experiences there is only one way to deal with people who are trying to kill you, get them first. You're probably at least as good as some of the men I have here. Also keep in mind if you turn my generous offer down, that I don't have men to spare protecting those who won't try to protect themselves, and the same goes for food." He added, somehow managing to make the threat sound like a simple stating of facts.

"Would it be okay with you if I talked with Jowy and my sister Nanami first?" Riou protested wanting more time to contemplate such a big decision.

Alexander simply shrugged and then gestured that Riou could go, which he did without hesitation.

XXX XXX XXX

With the highland youth gone Alexander turned his gaze to the elfin Devi Skye.

"So then, what exactly is our tactical situation, and how are we going to improve it?" He said conversationally.

Devi sighed slightly and reached under the table and pulled out a map of the surrounding area which she placed on the table.

"Could be better, much better. We're outnumbered, and Highland doubtlessly knows it. Still if the girl came from the north then their army is probably making their way south.

If they had headed right for us then there's no way a girl could have gotten here first. My guess is that they decided to make for Ryube first and they will put it to the torch before they bother to attack us. They'll probably be there before the day is through, and come tomorrow they'll swing their force around and approach this fort from the east.

It's an easy move to predict since the widest approach is to the east and will let them make the most of their numbers." Devi declared confidently.

Alexander placed his finger on the eastern approach to the base.

"Hearing that doesn't surprise me much. We're probably going to lose the battle when they get here as well. Granted there's a big difference between winning one battle and winning the entire war. Even more importantly I bet the six of us can make them wish they hadn't won the battle we end up giving them! Cal what's the condition of our secret weapon?"

Callan Wright laid his gun on the table and walked over to a nearby bookcase and easily pushed it aside, revealing a rack of odd looking weapons.

"For those who don't remember, these are firespears. It has been a while since we've been in a situation bad enough to call for using them, but this one just about fits the bill." Cal admitted while he picked one of the firespears and pressed the weapon against his chest.

"You hold them like this. We all better remember that, James, because if you confuse which end you hold and which end the flames come out of, well it's not pretty. That said, these should let us give Highland a very 'warm' reception if you know what I'm talking about. The bad news is that these are the same firespears we used to defeat Teo McDohl

I've given them a re-servicing the way he dwarfs taught me, but they also told me that even with good care these things have a short lifespan. Still, they're better than nothing. Boss as usual I'll provide the weapons, you tell us how we use them."

Alexander's fingers slowly moved pointing toward a bushel of trees nearby the fort.

"We set up a group a of men here armed with the firespears. When the time comes we open up and burn em down. Then another group emerges from the woods and proceed to close the box on our foes with a second wall of fire. With any luck all that will be of Highlands first assault on this base will be a pile of ash." He predicted with a savage growl in his voice.

The others simply nodded in agreement.

XXX XXX XXX

Riou, Jowy and Nanami exchanged awkward glances at each other.

"So what do we do?" Riou muttered in a mix of despair and confusion.

Jowy looked up at the table, down at the floor, and then spoke.

"We don't have a choice. If we refuse to fight for Alexander then it won't just be us who have to pay the price. It'll be Pilika also. She's depending on us, if we fight, then she's got an entire fort full of men ready to fight for her.

If we try to run then we're just four more orphans adrift in a nation at war. Highland taught us how to fight and then tried to kill us, we should put what we've learned to good use." Jowy suggested.

Riou in turn had no intention of running from any fight that Jowy wasn't scared of.

"Okay then I'm in also. Nanami why don't you..." Riou never got to finish the sentence before he was interrupted though.

"Do what Master Genkaku trained me to?" Nanami asked sardonically.

Riou had been about to suggest she stay with Pilika back at the fort. Jowy for his part was equally surprised.

"Um Nanami, I think that Alexander was extending an offer to us to fight for him meaning me and Riou, not all of us." Jowy tried to clarify.

In response however Nanami just stood up and pushed in her chair.

"Well why don't we go and ask him?" She pointedly shot back.

"Cause you don't need to." A new voice answered.

Apparently it wasn't just James and Mirri who could preform that particular Prophet of Destruction lean that said "why yes I was here time during your 'private' conversation" Florence also did it quite well.

"Alex has a saying 'if you can fight and want to, go ahead and do it'. No Sweet Polly Olivers in this army. But I'd go tell him your intentions straight away because you'll probably want as much time to get properly trained as possible. You may have learned a thin or two in the Unicorn Brigade, but it'll take more than that if you want to get through a real war in one piece." She advised them.

The trio of youngsters could only respond with dour nods.

End Chapter.


	5. Chapter 5

Ronin Trip

Book Two: Wild dogs and hunting wolves.

Chapter five: The lines are drawn, the orders are in, the dance commander is ready to sin!

Florence's words proved quite correct as Riou, Jowy and Nanami proceeded to spend a great deal of the day learning every conceivable thing there was to know about firespears. They were powerful weapons, one display of their power had assured Riou of that, but they're also seemed to be at least two dozen different ways they could malfunction.

Which meshed rather well with most things that he heard about dwarfs, them being capable of creating incredible machinery, which was usually too complex for most humans to fully understand. Firespears were one of the few such devices people could understand, or at the very least Callan Wright seemed to understand them. So he, his sister and his best friend trained and trained to be ready to do battle with these weapons, trying not to think about who exactly they would be doing battle with.

XXX XXX XXX XXX

"Are you drunk?" Asked a mind numbingly loud voice.

Highland Captain Seed Affleck rolled over on his bunk, and gazed up the brilliant white light that was suddenly flooding his tent.

"That depends Culgan, did you always have a twin brother you haven't bother to tell me about till now?" Seed answered while blinking his green eyes repeatedly.

The figure (well figures) who had just entered Seed's tent could if you looked at it the right way seemed more like a man of the cloth than a Captain in Highland's fourth army. He had black boots, white pants, and a loose and flowing white and black cloak with a long white cape that trailed down his back. His short cut white hair made him look even older than he really was and his black eyes were currently narrowed in irritation.

"You do realize that there's a war going on again don't you? A real war?" Culgan muttered while burring his face in his right hand.

"Of course I do. Do you think I get this soused for no reason? I was simply toasting Highland's success with a few of our fighting men last night. Got to keep up moral and all that after all. Interesting side note, some our fighting men are surprisingly weak of spirit, at least when they have strong spirits set before them." Seed explained in his usual glib manner.

Culgan for his part didn't even bother to verbally reply, he just lowered his arms and fixed a steely eyed glare at his co-captain who was still flat on his back.

"Anyway, it's not like the general is going to find out. Not unless you tell him of course, and you wouldn't do that would you buddy?" Seed implored his green eyes wide as they could get.

Once more Culgan simply remained stoically silent as suddenly a blue haze began to surround Seed. When it passed the calvary captain pushed aside the sheets (revealing that he had gone to sleep in his red and white outfit) rolled off his cot and landed on his feet with remarkable grace.

"See, it's nothing that a little healing magic can't fix!" Seed declared proudly as set about the pointless task of trying to brute force his crimson locks into something approaching order.

"Besides, if you knew what I knew then you'd be drinking to." Seed predicted ominously.

Culgan's glower relaxed slightly. He still was far from completely certain how Seed Affleck had managed to reach his current position but if nothing else he had the virtues of his vices. All that time and money he had spent in taverns had left Seed Affleck situated at the center of a truly epic rumor mill. Said mill was all too ready to churn out boundless bits of misinformation of course, but (even if only by sheer random chance) grains of truth emerged every so often also to.

"Yeah that's right." Seed confided with Culgan having grown adept at reading the other man's body language.

"We're going in against the Kiken Ookami himself today." Seed revealed in the same tone of voice one uses to announce the discovery that a family member has come down with a deadly disease.

"You're butchering that phrase you know." Culgan commented on his comrades pronunciation.

"I don't care if I'm ravishing it. I can speak Highlander just fine, and by the time we're done with Jowston that'll be the only language I'll ever need. In the mean time, Luca doesn't want his precious White Wolf Army to get confused with the dastardly Silver Wolf Army that Alexander Diamondclaw was in charge of back in Toran. So if that's what he wants them called, and for us to do it in the ancient Harmonian instead that's what I'll call them." The red haired captain followed up his comments with one of his classic carefree shrugs.

Before the conversation got to thoroughly side track Culgan strove to bring it back to the more pertinent matter at hand.

"Either way what makes you so sure he'll be there?" Culgan muttered softly while raising an eyebrow.

"Because some of our scouts had gotten back in time to raise a couple mugs last night." Seed clarified.

"Are you saying that these scouts were willing to tell share information with you that they didn't pass on to the general, or that the general is withholding such information from us?" Culgan asked not particularly pleased with either possibility.

"Culgan you always were so by the book." Scoffed Seed.

"I simply felt free to extrapolate what I was told in a more freewheeling manner than the general evidently has. That fort is assuredly staffed completely by mercenaries since there are now major Jowston cities nearby, and our scouts say there was no sign that they were beginning to evacuate the place. There's no way they don't know we're here, Prince Blight couldn't have managed to kill all the civies between here and the border.

Hell, they've probably got better intel on us than we do on them given that every one of those previously mentioned civilians who is still alive is doubtlessly reporting our movements and size of our force back to the mercenaries. So they know we're here, they know we mean business, and that we thoroughly outnumber them. Something or somebody has to be giving those mercs a good reason to stick around rather heading for the hills..." Seed confided with a none too gentle nudge of the elbow to Culgan's ribs.

That, that was probably the reason why Seed Affleck was a Captain in the Highland Fourth Army rather than just another private constantly blowing his money on women and drink. Because you could put up with long winded rambling answers (and if there was one thing Captain Culgan was good at it was putting up with people) you would realize that there was a perversely coherent logic behind them.

"We'll then, we'll have to be extremely careful." Culgan admitted unsure of what other response there possibly could be.

"Damn right. I mean you've heard of what happened to the last guy who lead a calvary charge against Alexander Diamondclaw? Went by the name of Teo McDohl? I hear that there wasn't enough of him left to fill a vase let alone a coffin. Some people even say that..." Culgan just stood their passively waiting for his partner to ramble his way to the end of this story also.

XXX XXX XXX XXX

"Seed, Culgan!" Barked the loud abrasive voice of Solon Jhee general of Highland's fourth army.

The pair of captains slowly road their steeds forward (Culgan road a magnificent white stallion while Seed had a somewhat mangier roan mount of the same gender) until their front hooves were perfectly parallel with Solon Jhee's.

"Listen you two, Prince Luca Blight has trusted us with the important task of seizing this fort..." Jhee began.

XXX XXX XXX XXX

"And so you see General Kiba, the brilliance of my plan is that I am not simply open to the idea that Solon Jhee's fourth army might fail. No, in point of fact... I'm counting on Alexander and his men be present in strong enough force to turn them aside before they even lay foot upon the fort!" Cackled Luca Blight.

XXXX XXXX XXXX XXX

"If those mercenaries have any sense they will be holed up inside their fort waiting for us to go in after them out. However, we can not be certain of that at this moment, so I want you to make sure of it. Take the left and right flanks of our force and sweep through the trees.

If Alexander Diamondclaw or whoever is in charge over there has men hidden within them you will flush them out like quail before the beaters! Then they will be ground into dust beneath the hooves of me and my men." Jhee commanded his two subordinates.

Seed and Culgan exchanged well worn glances. Neither of them truly minded being on the front line, but it irked Seed just how transparently cowardly Jhee was about this kind of thing.

Just like every other battle that they had fought recently Jhee was going to hang back and send his captains to all the actual blood spilling before grabbing all the glory for himself. Well they'd been at this long enough, why should he still be surprised that the guy in command had it better than his underlings?

XXX XXX XXX XXX

"Here they come..." Alexander muttered under his breath as he watched the two approaching Highland calvary forces. They seemed to only make up about half of the total force approaching the mercenary fort but it was not as if Alexander had a choice.

Firespears were bulky and unwieldy, best to use them as soon as possible so that his troops could then discard them and be unencumbered while wielding more conventional weapons.

"Wait until they've gone past us for a minute or two, and nobody had better open up before they get the signal.." He whispered back to his soldiers and four in particular, his three recently recruits form Highland and of course James Firecat.

XXX XXX XXX XXX

Riou lay crouched among bushes with a firespear pressed to his chest, Jowy to his right, Nanami to his left, waiting to take part in his first real battle which apparently was not going to be anything like what he had expected.

For one thing, he was going to be trying to kill men dressed in Highland blue instead of Jowston brown. Not to mention he wasn't going to be meeting his foe in open combat, he was going to wait here till the signal came, and then he was going to let lose with a stream of fire that would roast his foes alive. But he was a solider, he had been trained to put his empathy aside till after the battle. Now was the time to wait like a hunter for his prey to draw close enough.

XXX XXXX XXXX

Seed Affleck wore a flowing rune on his right hand. It was not an especially flashy rune, the kind that would allow him to strike down foes at a great distance or slay dozens of opponents at a time. But he didn't mind.

Because a Flowing Rune let him done one thing very well, survive.

It really was amazing just how much a soldiers chances of survival increased when he could count on getting healed right after he'd been injured rather than needing to get carried off the battlefield first.

"Olly-olly-oxen free? Any mercenaries in these woods? Come out come out wherever you are!" He called out playfully.

"We're right over here!" Answered out a shrill voice.

Seed blinked a couple of times in shock, he had never expected that to actually work, maybe the goddess of luck really was on his side?

Then Seed got his first look at the an actual Jowstonian soldier. He could tell because the soldier was not dressed in Highland Blue, in fact he was about as far as you could possibly get from your average Highland soldier. He was a nay-kobold dressed from head to toe in bright red, and was holding some sort of strange black and red tube...

XXX XXXX XXX XXX

James Firecat had been given orders that he was to be the first person to actually use his firespear. Alexander had figured that James would be letting loosing with his spear first regardless of who was supposed to so he had bowed to inevitability and made James the linchpin of the firespear force.

The nay-kobold looked down the crude sight on his weapon right at the Highland Captain before him. Then he yanked the necessary lever and his firespear belched forth flame.

XXX XXXX XXX

"OH SHIT!" Seed Affleck barely had time to think those words before they burst from his lips.

Luckily, water magic was good for more than just healing, in some rare situations it could keep you from getting hurt in the first place...

He raised his hands channeled his magic and then countered the blast of flame with a gushing wave of water.

In a sane world that would have been the end of it, the flames would have been extinguished by the fire and then Seed would have been safe.

But evidently while Seed had recovered from his hangover this morning, the rest of reality had decided to get tipsy on him. Because what actually happened was that the mass of water hit the fire and the two seemed to push against one another and the fire was knocked aside.

Except that the fire was not put out, in fact it seemed to burn all the brighter as it splashed against various trees and plants igniting them in the blink of an eye.

Just that quickly Seed had unintentionally created a wall of fire between him and the mercenaries. So much for any hope of closing with those sons of bitches.

"It can't be!" Seed screamed in amazement. More of the mercenaries were standing up and firing their weapons other approaching members of his force. None of them were armed with powerful water magic like their captain and the scent of signed flesh soon joined that of smoldering wood.

"This fight isn't over yet!" Seed called out at the nay-kobold and then yanked on his reins as hard as he could, bringing his horse to a dead stop. Then he started kicking the beast's flanks with all his strength.

"Turn, turn, TURN YOU EQUINE SON OF A BITCH, TURN!" Seed practically pleaded with his mount wanting to put some distance between him and the mercenaries before another one of them tried to fry him to a crisp.

"CULGAN, CULGAN WHERE ARE YOU, WE NEED TO FALL BACK AND REGROUP NOW!" He screamed at the top of his lungs as he dug in his spurs and started to beat a most rapid retreat.

He caught sight of his fellow captain fairly soon, and he also caught sight of several mercenaries who he must have ridden right past a few moments ago. They all had firespears, and they were clearly intent on finishing what the nay-kobold and his group had started.

One of them fired of another blast of flames at Culgan that didn't seem quite as powerful as the one aimed at Seed had been. Which meant it was able to engulf his horses' legs in flame but not its rider. With skill born from a lifetime of horsemanship Culgan lifted his legs from the stirrups and jumped just as his horse collapsed beneath him.

Realizing his wishes had no say in the mater Seed spread his arms wide and tried to relax as Culgan landed on top of him knocking the reins from his hands. Luckily Culgan took over, grabbing the reins himself and kept the pair's now shared horse moving away from the start of the ambush.

"I should have been more careful." The reserved man muttered to no one in particular.

"You also shouldn't have eaten such a large breakfast. Also feel free to get off me any time you're ready..." Seed advised from his extremely awkward position.

Culgan ignored his partner and just kept a tight grip on the reins not even risking a single look back until they managed to break out of the forest and back onto open ground.

"Well, that could have gone better..." Seed admitted candidly.

"Kiken Ookami." Was all Culgan had to say.

XXX XXX XXX XXX

Alexander was getting an itch in the back of his neck even as he saw the last of his opponents beating a hasty retreat he knew something somewhere was going wrong on his side of the fight. Then he saw it through a gap in the trees, a stream of flame shooting upwards. They had needed all the firespears they had in the fight, but Alexander had decided to leave one behind just in case.

If the fort came under any kind of attack it was to use that firespear as a signal.

Alexander was glad that he'd already figured out what his backup plan would be in case of a double pronged attack like this.

That meant he didn't have to come up with a plan under pressure, those kinds of plans were the ones most likely to get people killed without achieving anything. Instead he simply had to shout the orders he had already committed to memory.

"The fort is under attack! Prophets gather up the firespears and come with me, the rest of you get out of here and head for Muse! STICK TOGETHER unless you want those bastards we just sent packing to get any smart ideas! Move it!" Unfortunately as it turned out there was one small things he hadn't thought of.

The three Highland exiles stood apart as people raced about, after all no one had given them any orders. Jowy spoke up first.

"If your thinking about going back to the fort, we're coming with you! We have to make sure Pilika is okay!" He demanded angrily.

Alexander shook his head, this had bad idea written all over it, but he'd rather not waste the time talking them out of it.

"Fine, you two boys can come with me since the girl has a very strong attachment to you. Nanami, you stick with Mirri and fall back to Muse. Riou and Jowy drop your firespears right now for the others to take care of, you'll need both your hands. Before you ask me why, this is an order, hold onto the wolf's fur.

If you fail to obey it, whatever misfortune falls on your heads belongs there." Alexander commanded before tossing his own firespear to Cal. The Harmonian was wearing a large backpack that could store the spent firespears easily just for this situation.

Then Alexander slowly rubbed the back of his right hand as he felt energy ripple through his body.

"Howl Ookami!" He commanded as his right hand shot forth silver light in all directions.

XXX XXXX XXXX

"Hold onto the wolf's fur" was not what Riou would call a traditionally military order. In fact he had no idea what it meant at all, at least until Alexander stroked his right hand.

Then he was too busy watching to ponder what exactly the order meant.

All of a suddenly every single fiber of the general's being began to emit a silver light. It rose in intensity till Riou was forced to close his eyes. By the time he could open them again Alexander was gone.

In his place was a gigantic silver wolf, it was so large that Riou could not think of any animal he'd seen before to compare its size against.

It was the kind of wolf that Riou had thought only occupied nightmares and stories, the kind of wolf that didn't need to nip at a horse's legs because this wolf could slay the horse with one good swipe of its paws. It's eyes were an golden yellow and it wasn't just mindless violence that dwelt within them. Far from it, there was boundless cunning and oh...

The wolf... well Alexander gave Riou a quite offended look as if it was surprised that he'd needed so long to figure out what exactly what was going on. The Alexander turned back around pointing his nose towards the fort like a hunting dog and lowering his haunches to the ground.

Riou clambered his way up finally managed to wraps his arms as far around Alexander's neck as they would go. Jowy followed grabbing hold of whatever he could find and then Alexander was off.

If the speed he moved at was not faster than a horse at fully gallop, it certainly maintained that pace longer than any horse could have. In fact once Alexander reached the speed he wanted (which took all of a dozen paces) he didn't slow down in the slightest till he came up before the fort. Littered about it were a great many dead bodies, some Highland soldiers and some Jowston mercenaries.

Then Alexander pulled to a quick stop and in another flash of light he was suddenly back in his human form. This cause his two travelers to lose their grips and fall to the ground though neither of them suffered any real harm.

"Hold up until the others get here." Alexander instructed them. Jowy looked at the fort and gripped his staff tightly.

"What? Then why the hell did you run like mad to get back here?" He grunted in irritation.

Alexander didn't take his eyes off the fort as he answered.

"I hoped we'd be able to get here before they'd actually breached the fort. Apparently Highland brought a larger force with them than I expected. So, rather than rush in headlong we'll wait a couple of minutes till the others get here, and then we'll make them wish that they had never come to this fort." Alexander explained.

Jowy wasn't going to stand for that however.

"What about Pilika? The longer we wait the more likely they are to find her." He pointed out stamping his feet impatiently on the ground.

Alexander let lose with a barking laugh as he reached into a pocket of his outfit pulled out a small key on a chain and began to twirl it about his right index finger.

"I doubt it. Are you familiar with the concept of a 'keep' by any chance? It's the most heavily defended section of a castle, a castle within a castle you might say. The idea appealed to me, that conference room where we left Pilika, it's a fort within a fort. The walls may look to be made of wood, but Florence has a way with wood. So let us just say that there are only two ways into the room where Pilika currently is.

One of them is this key, and the other is a battering ram. If you don't trust me test your own weapons, I had Florence improve them since you decided you'd work for me." He remarked wryly.

Riou decided he would, his tonfas had been made of stout wood, it didn't make sense to use any other kind after all. But now when he took the one off his left hand and tried to bend it, he might have been trying to bend a block of stone for all the success he had.

"See? If she was in any real danger then I wouldn't be waiting, I only look like a monster." Alexander admitted.

So the four waited with their backs to the fort until Cal and Devi arrived with a large sack held between them.

"Okay then, let's get this show on the road, Cal I'll clear the way, you know what to do." Alexander circled around the fort with his back to it and the others did as well to stay out of sight. Once they reached the front door all attempts at stealth were abandoned.

Alexander let lose with a mighty kick and the fort's door swung open. Five Highland soldiers were apparently standing guard inside and at the sight of Alexander they drew their weapons. Rather than draw his own blade the mercenary jumped aside, and Cal brought up his gun. He needed only a small motion and his weapon let loose with a mighty roar.

A highland soldier dropped dead without Riou even seeing what had killed him. Meanwhile Devi struck with her flail, wrapping it around one of the Highland soldier's neck and a few moments later he dropped to the ground. That left three facing Alexander and Riou could already tell it was disastrous odds.

Alexander drew his longsword, and skewered one of them at once, easily ripping his sword free from what was left of his foe.

Then he sliced through the neck of another solider sending his head sailing through the air. Finally he reversed his grip and drove his sword through the face of his last standing opponent who had been trying to get behind him. He slid his sword back into its sheath with the same deadly precision and headed for the fort's basement.

Riou and Jowy meanwhile headed upstairs. They slowed their pace down some as they saw Luca Blight standing in front of a door with another soldier next to him.

"What do you mean you can't force the door? Get out of my sight you useless fool!" Highland's prince berated the man before punching the solider in the face.

He struck with enough force to send the soldier reeling backwards, and over the railing to plummet down to the floor below, which judging by the sound of snapping wood he broke through and kept falling into the basement.

Showing not one iota of interest in the ultimate fate of that soldier Luca instead returned his eyes to the door.

"Like so many things I'll just have to handle it myself!" He griped before drawing his sword slicing the door in half. He pushed aside the splinters and stomped into the room, and without time to second guess themselves Riou and Jowy followed him. A moment later they found James seated at the square table and Luca advancing on him.

"So you're the one who runs this fort? Pathetic!" He scoffed at the nay-kobold.

James rose out of his chair, not bothering to draw a knife.

"No, I'm just a place holder. Here to throw myself between you and what really matters." James declared proudly.

To both boys what he wanted to protect was quite clear, Pilika huddled against the far side of the room, her face as white as a sheet.

Luca raised his sword above James' head.

"Do you have any last words?" Luca inquired licking his lips in anticipation.

James looked up at Luca's blade.

"Umm... Isn't there something I can do that would make you spare my life?" He whimpered.

Riou didn't need to see Luca's face to imagine how ugly the look on it must have been.

"If you really want to live so badly, get down on your knees and act like a pig." He mocked James.

Without an ounce of hesitation James dropped to all fours and let out an enthusiastic if hardly authentic series of "oinks" much to Luca's delight.

"Very good, DIE PIG!" Luca cried as he brought his blade down, driving it through James' chest and out the other side.

The nay-kobold dropped to the ground, his clothing turning a much deeper shade of crimson. That act done Luca turned and looked at Pilika and then at the two newest additions to the room.

"One victim or two, it shouldn't make much of a difference, but I do so love the look in a young child's eyes as their soul leaves their body." Luca cackled to himself as he slowly began to approach Pilika, sword once more held high.

Riou and Jowy rushed forward since somehow Luca Blight hadn't noticed them yet and got their weapons between the prince's blade and Pilika.

They managed to stop Luca's sword but only just, and the Prince of Highland look down on them with contempt more than anger.

"You pathetic worms, how dare you get in my way? The weak have no right to muddle in the affairs of the strong!" He declared.

Once more Luca's blade flashed and the sheer strength behind the blow was enough to knock Riou and Jowy to floor. In fact, if Florence hadn't taken the time to toughen their weapons they probably would have been snapped in half by the impact.

However all of a sudden for a single moment Luca's face showed a new emotion, pain. Then it went back to irritation as he reached around and pulled a bloody dagger from his back. He was not at all pleased with what he saw waiting behind him?

"How many times do I have to kill you?" Luca demanded the "newest" interloper.

James Firecat stood in the now permanently open doorway twirling a knife in either hand.

"I regret to inform you that I have all of 81 lives to give for my company! But you have bigger things to worry about at the moment, Alex he's all yours." As James spoke the dead "James" on the floor shimmered and vanished into thin air.

Meanwhile the genuine article stepped into the room and then stood aside so that Alexander Diamondclaw could follow him. Luca apparently felt the same thing Riou had upon seeing the mercenary general, this was not someone to be taken lightly, and lowered his sword slightly placing both hands on its hilt for the first time.

"So you're the one wolf who refuses to recognize my strength. No matter, once I kill you I will take everything that was yours including your fame and this base!" Luca growled at the silver haired man.

Alexander drew his blade and like Luca adopted a serious dueling posture.

"Countless people of have tried to make a name for themselves by killing me, you'll be neither the first or the last." He informed Luca.

Before either of the two struck, James darted around the room and was suddenly helping Riou and Jowy back to their feet before turning towards Pilika.

"It'll be okay girl, just stick with the kitty." Pilika slowly wrapped her hands around James' neck and then the room was filled with the sound of ringing steel on steel.

"Time to go, follow me!" James instructed while he shifted Pilika about so that she was holding on to the back of his neck and then he took off on all fours scuttling out of the room.

Riou and Jowy followed as quickly as they could, staying in the room felt like a very bad idea at the moment.

XXXX XXX XXXX XXX

A thin trickle of moisture was working its way down Prince Luca Blight's face.

"Your not sweating, what's the matter, aren't I keeping you entertained?" Luca accused Alexander.

"This place still isn't quite hot enough for my liking." Alexander shot back.

The two men gazed into one another's eyes for a moment before returning to their interlocked blades.

Alexander abruptly applied more pressure and freed his blade allowing it to continue it's upwards ark toward the Prince's throat. Luca sword was knocked upwards but he quickly jumped back and righted it.

"Heh, how wonderful, I haven't had a real test of my strength in a long time." Luca chuckled .

He and Alexander then began to slowly circle each other in the small room.

"You're better than I expected. I had thought you just might be incredibly strong for a human, but obviously you've got a True Rune." Alexander noted calmly.

Luca's face flashed with surprise and then he charged at Alexander, his blade slashing downward. It bit into Alexander's cheek but was stopped by Alex's sword before it could enter his chest.

"How do you know that? Never mind, your sword is no match for mine in here Besides, in a few minutes the men from my main strike force will be pouring all over this base and you will be dead." Luca scoffed.

Alexander took another step backwards, practically putting his back to the wall.

"You're only right about one out of three. You do have the advantage in here, but I have rwo things you don't. The first is a plan and the second is an incredibly accurate sense of how much time has passed.

Ever before we started fighting one of my subordinates tossed our firespears into this fort's furnace. The blast will turn this entire building into nothing more than a charred heap of rubble. Who knows maybe before long I can sell you another hole in the ground at the same price." Alexander joked before he jumped backwards.

That one, and only that one section of the wall had not been reinforced by Florence and he crashed through it and out into the open air.

Luca was momentarily torn between going after his opponent and trying to turn around and stop the impending disaster Alexander had predicted. He didn't have enough time to do either, and wasted any he did have try to make the choice.

XXXX XXXX XXXX XXXX

"How long is left now?" Devi asked.

Cal held up a hand with five fingers outspread, and then slowly lowered one after another. When his entire hand was curled into a fist, the dusk landscaped suddenly became that of a midday one as the fort transformed itself into a second sun.

Granted it was not so much a ball of fire as a long stream of it shooting up into the air for brief moment and then dieing away.

Cal nodded in satisfaction at the sight.

"You know it's time like these when I think back to how much I learned from the Howling Voice Guild, and how I royally screwed them over, then I laugh." He noted mirthfully.

Once he started Devi soon joined him.

End Chapter

FN (Firecat Note): For reference (at least according to my friend who speaks/writes a fair amount of Japanese) "Kiken Ookami" = Bad Wolf.


	6. Chapter 6

Ronin trip

Book two: Wild dogs and hunting wolves

Chapter six: I want to know why history repeats.

Seed Affleck looked over what was left of the mercenary based and scowled.

"So when all is said and done, all we have to show for nearly getting fried is a this pile of rubble? Well, this attack could have gone better..." He mused more to himself than anyone else

In response Captain Culgan showed off his typical skill at being able to scowl at someone without ever needing to move his lips.

"How the situation turned out isn't what matters. What matter is that we need to check this place for survivors, ours or theirs." Seed kicked at a pile of ash and walked a few paces before kicking at another pile of it.

"Yeah. Survivors, like we're gonna find any of those. There was considerably more of Ryube or Toto after we were done with them than this place. No normal person could have survived this. Hell we haven't even been able to find any intact bodies." Seed noted dourly.

Culgan began to inspect another portion of rubble pushing it aside to side nothing but ash beneath.

"Be that as it may Seed we have to check. Our loses were too great to ignore the possibility of locating survivors who can help us when we reach Muse." Culgan reminded his partner.

A moment later a mostly intact support pillar among the rubble shifted. Underneath it was Prince Luca Blight, quite blackened of face, but still quite shining of armor. He stood up and looked at Seed, Culgan, and all the other Highland soldiers present.

"Worthless, worthless, all of you so god dam worthless. Apparently I really need to do everything myself. Seed, Culgan, stop whatever your doing, we have more important things to do than look for those who weren't clever or strong enough to save their own lives.

We have some revenge to extract. This will look like nothing but a flicker in the night next to the bonfire I plan to turn Muse into." His orders given Luca looked towards the Muse and let loose with a single phrase with enough venom to poison an entire towns water supply.

"Kiken Ookami!" He bellowed to the sky.

XXXXX XXXX XXX XXX

"He's strong." Callan Wright noted in between spurring his horse onward.

"My cheek is currently telling me that Cal. He didn't just make me sweat, he actually managed to make me bleed..." Alexander muttered in amazement.

"So do you have a plan for how to deal with Luca Blight?" Cal inquired a moment later.

"At the moment plan involves the next time I pick a fight with him it being some place outside." Alexander answered with a low guttural growl.

"As for the rest of it, remember Jowston is a pretty large nation, and we just took a nice bite out of Luca's men.

"The four of us get to Muse and let Anabelle know first hand what happened. If Luca is ready to take on any defense we throw before him, let's see how well he does trying to conquer an entire city instead of a small fort. Remember, if Luca's men busy crawling all over the fort before we blew it up they couldn't be focused on chasing down our soldiers..." He further explained.

XXXX XXXXX XXXX XXX

Riou and Jowy looked back at the fort and then at their two guides.

"So now what?" Riou asked, looking at the ruins of the fort. Somehow, he wasn't sure how, the four of them had gotten separated from the rest of the Prophets of the Destruction.

James let out a profound sigh as he slowly went from looking southwest to northeast.

"That's simple. Alex, Florence, Cal and Devi, are going to take our fastest horses Muse and tell people what happened. Meanwhile, we and the other mercenaries head for it on foot. The walk will be a little on the long side, but if you aren't use to marching then I guess I'd have to ask you, are you sure you're a solider?" The question was asked in considerably more whimsically than Riou had asked the nay-kobold a similar question but that didn't mean it was completely without barbs.

"What about Pilika? We can't leave her behind and she won't be able to move very fast." Jowy demanded with a side glance at the girl in question.

"I may look wiry as all get out, but trust me, underneath this jacket, is naught but fur, bones, and pure feline muscle. I can carry her all the way to Muse, and not be panting hard. That okay with you sweetheart? Just think of it as a very long kitty-back ride." James answered before he gave a jaunty shrug bouncing Pilika slightly.

In response Pilika's mouth moved but no sound came out. James tilted his head to the side in surprise and then twisted about so that he could have one of his ears right before her mouth.

"Could you say that again?" But in response to the nay-kobold's words Pilika's just once more moved her mouth without producing any actual sound.

Mirri leaned close and pushed aside some of Pilika's light brown hair.

Underneath it was a small bruise on her forehead, from which a trick of blood had emerged but mostly been soaked up by her hair. Mirri ran a finger through that trickle and then licked the blood from her finger. She then proceeded to roll the contents of her mouth around with her tongue as if tasting a very fine wine before finally speaking.

"Could be much worse could be much better. Coming face to face with Luca Blight the man who doubtlessly at some level killed her parents, scared he speechless, literally.

She still understands what we're saying, but she just can't formulate words. If I took a couple pints of her blood I could probably fix the problem, but the cure would be worse than the disease. It would be like the equivalent of trying to fix a broken bone by shoving it back in its socket, and the mind is far more fragile than your average bone.

Not only that but there's the issue of how loosing that much blood at such a young age could kill her. Sometimes the best approach is to just let the body and the mind heal problems at their own pace." Mirri reflected.

Jowy walked over to James and held out his arms.

"Give her to me." He demanded in a an emotionless tone of voice.

James looked at Jowy and arched back his eyebrows.

"You sure about that? Humans aren't exactly known for being able to carry other humans for long distances." He offered up sounding like some ancient professor talking about a particular species of insect.

Jowy just dropped his staff and dropped it at James' feet.

"You can take this, and if I ever start to slow down you can have her back. But until I slow down..." Jowy promised them.

James gave in and handed Pilika over, and at once Jowy gave her a tight hug.

"It'll be okay Pilika, if you can't talk I'll teach you how to write at the very least." He promised the brown haired girl.

At first all Mirri did was sigh, clearly not expecting Jowy to be able to carry Pilika and keep up a reasonable pace for very long at all.

"Fine, now that we've got all this sorted out, let's march." She ordered.

March they did.

XXXX XXXX XXXX XXXX

They didn't march long that day, shortly after night fell they found a grove of trees and fell asleep under them. The next day however, they marched till they reached what was left of the village of Toto that Pilika had come from.

Amazingly Jowy had never fallen a step behind Riou even while carrying Pilika, though when they finally did come to a stop he was breathing incredibly raggedly and his face was as pale as Mirri's.

Though Jowy seemed to glad just to have a chance to catch his breath, Riou had his other things on his mind.

"So what exactly is there to eat?" The black haired youth wondered aloud.

He taken the time to grab a few pieces of hard bread before leaving the fort but had devoured them several hours ago. At the moment that he asked the question, Mirri was leaning against a piece of rubble that had once been a house and pointed a finger at James.

"You know what to do, let's search this place and see if we can't find a pot. They might have burned down every single thing they could have, but iron pots are a long way from flammable. Ohh and enough wood to start a fire would be nice also." She ordered.

James got to rummaging at once, and not wanting to feel completely useless Riou also did as well, about sixty seconds later he caught glimpses of Nanami picking up a few sticks of only mostly burnt wood also.

When they compared all they had, it wasn't much just an iron pot, and a couple of sticks.

Headless of their lack of resources James happily stacked the wood and rested the pot onto of it.

"Okay then, all we need now is some water. They can hardly have burned down the well, so if you three would make a couple of trips while James gets the fire going we'll have ourselves a meal ready soon." Mirri continued to instruct the other four without doing any work herself.

True enough the three Highlanders had canteens with which they took water from the well and slowly filled up the pot. Which left them with a steaming bubbling pot full of water, and absolutely nothing more than that.

"Okay then, so where's the food?" Jowy asked while stamping his foot on the ground in irritation.

Mirri reached over and picked up a charred piece of wood which she began to beat against the pot.

"It's quite simple really. You bring the fire, I'll bring the feast. All aboard that's going aboard!" She declared confidently.

As the ringing sound produced by the impacts filled the air suddenly a veritable stream of rats came forth from the ruins of the city. They also proceeded to come to an abrupt stop around the group in a most distinctly unratlike way. Mirri waved her hands towards the rodents and smiled.

"All these lives will I give you, ay, and many more and greater." Mirri said in an ominous tone as she clenched her fists.

The rats did nothing other than squeak pathetically as James picked them up one after another and proceeded to drop them into the pot.

Once all the rats had been dealt with James proceeded to stick what had apparently once been an iron fireplace poker into the pot and stirred with it. After a while he dipped a hand into the pot and smiled.

"Just right, rat stew, my specialty, who want some?" James offered.

Riou considered decisively saying "not me" but his stomach apparently had other ideas.

Eating stewed rats on his lap after having them removed from the pot through the process of being impaled on a fireplace poker was not his idea of a reasonable meal even for a military man.

But for all it's faults it did do something to fill his belly. It was amazing how much something simple like that could mean to you when you were quite hungry. Even Nanami ate hers with a stoicism that most trained soldiers would have envied.

XXXX XXXX XXXXX XXXX

Riou came awake when he felt the tapping on his shoulder and looked over at Jowy who had apparently decided to wake him up.

"What is it?" Riou mumbled, still having some trouble keeping his eyes open at the moment.

For an answer Jowy motioned towards Pilika who was shaking his leg at the moment.

"I don't know, but she's from around here so there must be something she wants to show us." Jowy suggested.

Riou slowly nodded and then looked at his sister.

"Should we wake them up just to be safe?" Riou pondered.

At the moment Nanami was laying asleep not far from her brother. James and Mirri were likewise asleep (that had thrown Riou slightly, he had thought that the Prophets of Destruction stayed awake at all hours of the day and night) with James laying his head in Mirri's chest and she absentmindedly nuzzling the back of his neck with her chin.

"You think something bad is gonna happen to us in here? I doubt it, why would Pilika want to take us some place dangerous? We'll bring our weapons and that'll be plenty." Jowy stated confidently.

As quietly as they could (and to Riou's slight surprise without waking anyone up) the three of them walked away from the others. It didn't take them long to reach the destination Pilika's had in mind for them, it looked like a small man made cave that had for some reason decided to pop into being near the edge of the town.

Pilika jumped up and down at the sight of it and Jowy just nodded slowly.

"This was a shrine that she showed me not longer after I washed up. It was her parents' job to protect and care for it. Supposedly there was some kind of great treasure inside and she could only remember the doors ever once being opened." Jowy helped fill his friend in.

The doors" had doubtlessly once been mighty pieces of wood with a stout iron bar across them to keep them shut, but now they simply lay on the ground, blackened and charred like the rest of the village.

Pilika very slowly started to walk towards the shrine with her two companions following in tow though Riou didn't seem much point.

"Whatever the treasure was, I doubt it's still here anymore. Luca probably either set it on fire on stole it depending on what it was." He predicted pessimistically.

Undeterred Jowy walked deep into the cave and began to read an inscription he could make out through the flickering torchlight that lit the shrine.

"'My friend and I seal our thoughts here. We deeply regret that we could not make them one.' Then there's a dash and two names. 'Han and Genkaku'... wait... you don't think whatever this is it has something to do with your adopted father do you?" Jowy wondered.

Before Riou could answer someone else did in.

"Do not worry... There are some treasures that not even Luca Blight can defile..." Announced a woman who suddenly appeared in a swirl of white light.

She had a mature face, and wore a purple outfit with a hood that covered her from head to toe. She had eyes that were a solid pool of black and she somehow floated without touching the ground. At once Riou and Jowy reached for their weapons, but the woman only laughed.

"You need not be alarmed. I am Leknaat, inheritor of the Gate Rune. The keeper of the gates between worlds. She who watches the great scales of Fate. I am here because you two have awakened the True Runes that rest within this place." Leknaat expounded.

"You mean the True Runes actually exist?" Riou gasped in surprise. He had heard stories of the 27 True Runes of course, runes far more powerful than any man made ones were, supposedly they had existed since the creation of Suikoden.

"Yes they exist, in fact you have already had your destiny intertwined with those who bear them. If you accept the True Rune's offer, then your destiny will become inescapably intertwined with them for a great while longer.

Housed within this shrine are two of the True Runes, and they can grant each of you great power. However be warned, do not mistake power for peace, and there have been many who have sought to control True Runes, and only too late discovered that their True Rune has been controlling them." Leknaat whispered towards the pair.

"You said that we've run into people who have possessed True Runes? Who are they?" Riou wanted, no he needed to know the answer to that question.

"The wolf, a noble creature existing ignobly on the fringes of human society. Lighting, striking from far away and leveling foes without mercy or warning. The trickster, always one step behind or one step ahead of others. Blood, rushing to every wound, rarely appreciated for its healing properties. The gardener, nurturing life with one hand, yanking weeds from the soil with the other. Gravity the force which simultaneously pulls us down and yet lets us walk. The beast, frothing at the mouth over its kills. But at your beck and call could be an entirely new kind of power... There are great rewards from holding a True Rune, but also great risks. Make your choice." Leknaat said while spreading her hands wide.

"This True Rune, it will make us powerful right? I'll do it. I'm tired of standing around watching everything I ever cared about slip away from me unable to anything! Right Riou?" Jowy inquired while casting a quick glance in Pilika's direction.

Riou wasn't sure of what exactly Jowy was getting himself into, but he also wasn't about to let him go it alone.

"Whatever it means, whatever happens, I'll stick with you Jowy. You said there are two True Runes correct Leknaat? I'll take one also." Riou decided.

Leknaat nodded and raised her hands.

"The Runes expected as much, which was why they bothered to awaken from their sleep. Give me your right hands, and be warned, not easily are True Runes melded to human flesh. There will be great pain, if you wish to rethink your decision, best do it now." She uttered one final warning.

It went unheeded however as both Riou and Jowy raised their right hands, and Leknaat took them. Almost at once Riou felt like his entire body, no his entire mind was on fire.

"Onto you Riou is conferred the Bright Shield Rune and the status of Guardian, long may you protect those who you hold dear. Onto you Jowy is conferred the Black Sword Rune, and the status of Warrior, long may you strike down those who bar your way." Whispered Leknaat's voice.

Everything went white, he thrashed about trying to free his hand from the strange woman's grip. She held him fast though, and pain continued to flow through every single inch of his body. All he could do was accept the pain and wait for it to pass. It showed no signs of ending or lessening however and the only respite Riou could find came when eventually all sense of consciousness fled his body.

XXX XXXX XXX XXXX

Riou looked over at Jowy and Pilika, all three of them were laying down inside the shrine.

"Was that all just a dream?" Riou couldn't help but wonder aloud.

Jowy held up his right hand, burned onto the back of it was a black sword.

"No, it was very, very real." He reflected.

Riou looked at the back of his own right hand, on it was a shining green shield.

"Yeah, you're right, I don't know how exactly, but I feel, well a lot different." Riou admitted.

"Damn, we take our eyes off you for one second and look what you go and do!" A female voice interrupted the pair's introspection.

Mirri and James were standing at the opening of the shine with their eyes intently focused on the two symbols now emblazoned on the back's of Riou and Jowy's right hands.

"You kids are going to need to buy some gloves the first chance you get. I know I have an extra pair I can lend one of you, but I'll want them back." Mirri advised them.

"What gives you the right to tell us what to do about these things?" Jowy demanded, while still rubbing his hand as if to see if he could get the symbol on it would fade away.

As one James and Mirri pulled off their right gloves.

On the back of James' right hand was the image of a white cat. It sat on three paws with a it's front left paw upraised, and a large golden coin sparkled on it's neck. The image on the back of Mirri's hand was much more simple, but equally vibrant, a single large drop of blood.

Then they put their gloves back on and Mirri once again showed off her traditional smug smile.

"You see, Riou, there are people who think that they can gain a True Rune by killing off it's current holder. Secondly, you let people see this thing, and then people know that they should expect the amount of power your packing. Surprise is a useful weapon in combat and you should never just give up any chance of having it on your side.

Thirdly and most importantly, your still just kids compared to us even if you have True Runes, because we have them also.

I am... well it's not nice to ask a lady her age, so James how old are you?" Mirri suddenly broke off.

"Three hundred somthingity something. I'd be more exact but the calendar of my homeland doesn't match up with the one you guys use, so I have to guess." James answered after some quick reflection.

Riou looked at James in amazement. He had heard that nay-kobolds had a lifespan that differed from the human one, but not by that much!

More to the point, it was impossible to imagine someone like James could act the way he did, compared to Master Genkaku who (if the nay-kobald's word was to be believed) had been less than one third his age when he had died.

After all someone was three times as old as Genkaku should have acted three times as dignified not... not the way that James acted.

"How can you possibly be 300 years old?" Riou blustered in befuddlement.

James slapped the back of his right glove, underneath which the symbol of his True Rune dwelt.

"Well I was born, and I never quite died, so every so often I had a birthday, and those birthdays kept adding up, which is how I got to be three hundred years old. But seriously, the issue isn't with how old we are, it's with how young you are. Until you've had the True Rune for at least a decade your going to have no real sense of the power you have. It's not so much that your playing fire, as playing with a firespear." The nay-kobold reflected.

"A decade? By that time we'll doubtlessly be just about ready to stop fighting. I mean we'll be getting old." Jowy pondered.

James and Mirri looked at each other and then let louse with a long series of laughs.

"You boys don't know much at all about True Runes do you? I mean haven't you ever heard the one about how once you have a True Rune melded to your right hand you never age past your physical prime?" James eventually managed to explain once he was done laughing.

Riou shook his head as did Mirri and James went back to snorting in contempt.

"Honestly, what do parents teach their children these days? I mean like I said, I'm, well let's say three hundred and such and such. Do you have any idea what that translates to in cat years? And yet I still feel like I just got my first mane!" James clarified further, or at least he tried to.

His words however just drew still more odd looks from from all three of the people who were actually inside the shrine rather than just standing at the mouth of it.

"James, the kids haven't been with you as long as I have. Kids, what James is trying to say is that after three centuries he still feels totally hale, hearty, and otherwise could not be more vigorous. Trust me, he's loyal as a dog and yet a real wildcat in the sack. You know what the 'sack' is by the way right?" Mirri translated, perhaps a bit too fully.

Riou was old enough to understand what she meant of course, and judging by the way Jowy's was turning red was he knew as well. Except that what started as a simple flush of embarrassment now seemed to be giving way to anger

"Yes we know! But I'm willing to bet that Pilika doesn't and what do you think your doing talking about it in front of her?" Jowy protested.

"Don't worry about that Jowy. I'm sure it went over her head. Besides, you guys have more important things to worry about than a little soldier talk." Mirri sighed.

"For example in a couple of hours you're going to start hearing a voice in your head and seeing things or people which that aren't actually there when you stick your hands into them. Don't worry, you'll get used to it after a week or so, if it's still really bothering you after a month then it's probably your True Rune chipping away at your sanity one pebble at a time and worrying won't do you any good." The vampire clarified.

If that statement had been meant to inspire confidence, it failed spectacularly but neither James nor Mirri seemed to care.

"Now then, why don't we do some training?" James offered happily.

"Training?" "What happened to getting to Muse as soon as possible?" Riou shot back.

"You two have a lot to lean about being a vessel for True Rune." Mirri said with another smile."

"If I carry Nanami and James carries Pilika we can run all the way to Muse. One thing every True Rune grants its holder is increased strength, speed and stamina. So let's go see how good you are at using it." Mirri inquired.

By the time Riou and Jowy had left the shrine James was already at Nanami's apparently part way through an explanation.

"Don't worry about what your about to see. It takes a hell of a lot to hurt someone with a True Rune, we're just going to teach them the way a mother bird teaches its kids to fly." The nay-kobold reassured her.

That comment however did little to lift the cloud of apprehension that had fallen over Riou.

"Ladies first, which one do you want to put through the wringer?" Then James offered with a polite bow to his partner.

Mirri took a few steps to the right and locked her eyes on Jowy, before quite extravagantly licking her lips. James straightened up, looked at Riou and made a few more pointless gestures with his hands.

"Well then, guess it'll be you and me sparring together. I suggest you watch closely, because the paw is quicker than the eye." James commented as he began to casually walk to the left, and stand still.

Not one after another, he did both at once.

Like a butterfly emerging from a cocoon James "step out" of himself leaving a copy of him behind. As he continued to walk along he left seven more of himself in "his" wake. All of the nay-kobolds took one step towards Riou and spoke in the exact same voice.

"Your a little confused now aren't you? Well allow me to introduce you to me, myself, and I, II, III, IV, V, VI, VII.

Only one of me is actually James Firecat, the other 8 are nothing more that projections of the Trickster Rune. Oh and the longer you use a True Rune, the more in synch you get with it, the more power you can call forth from it. At first I could only make simply duplicates which would fall apart when a leaf blown by the wind passed through them.

These days however I've got complete sensory hypnosis, a blind man couldn't penetrate my powers. Check this out..." He cried out happily before every single James drew knives and hurled them at Riou.

His target brought up his tonfas to defend himself and managed to block a couple of them but still he felt several flashes of pain which somehow went as quickly as they had come and then he looking down saw that he was unharmed.

When Riou returned his attention to his part opponent, part mentor, he saw that one James was still holding his knives.

"You felt that right? The pain is all in your mind, but it's still there, and it can make someone flinch at all the wrong times. Of course you know which me is real now, so I'll have to switch things up. The real James sheathed his knives, and all of the copies vanished. Then he executed a long cartwheel his body "stopping" at various points as copies split off from it leaving Riou once more unsure which James was real.

"Okay there we go. Now then I'll start with something simple, CATPILE!" The real and the copies all screamed in one voice before they raced at Riou.

Riou fought them off as best he could, striking at them with either hand, causing several of them to vanish as his blows went right through them. However almost as soon as he started fighting, he was suddenly tackled, from behind. He wound up face down in the dirt with the weight of James on his back.

"See that's one of my favorite tactics. You get the guy so focused on seeing a bunch of you rush right at him that he never even suspects the real you might be circling around behind. But still not bad at all, you got four or five of me in the time it took me to side step and pounce. Well then now that I've got the adrenalin pumping THINK FAST!" James suddenly shouted jumped into the air.

Riou rolled over as fast as he could so he could trying to keep his eyes on the nay-kobold. In mid air James drew a knife and hurled it right at Riou. The drawing happened with the same smooth precision that always accompanied James' maneuvers but the knife seemed slower. Riou rolled to the side again and the knife buried itself in the ground.

"Catch it!" James chanted the phrase merrily as he drew another knife and much to Riou's surprise, threw it at him underhanded.

Instead of his normal pull back, this time James' arm went back straight horizontally without any sort of vertical uplift. As it went forward the knife went arm went a little lower, and then he let go of his weapon's hilt.

The odd tactic didn't seem to impede the accuracy of the knife that much, it was still headed straight for Riou's kneecap but it was slower. Riou neglected to take James' advice and simply blocked it with his tonfa.

James looked crestfallen for a moment and sighed.

"Fine, let's just keep trying till you feel comfortable." He reluctantly suggested.

James kept throwing the knives, and Riou kept blocking them. Eventually James gave up (or possibly simply ran out of knives) and simply nodded to Riou.

"There, you're a lot better than you used to be whether you know it or not. How did yours do Mirri?" James asked his partner.

In truth Riou had been too busy defending himself to pay any attention to how his friend was doing. What he saw when he looked over instantly made Riou feel his tiredness drain out to be replaced with embarrassment at how easy things had been for him.

Jowy now had several fairly obvious and rather nasty looking bruises on his body, unsurprisingly Mirri had apparently been a harder teacher than James. What was surprising was that he was smiling. He gave Riou a thumbs up as their eyes met.

"I think I'm starting to get the hang of it." Jowy declared confidently.

That was more than Riou could say, everything he had done had been unintentional.

Nanami was still looking at the two of them much more sedate than normal.

"You two are lot better. Way better than when you were just a couple of days ago from military training." She noted.

Mirri nodded as she sedately walked over to Nanami and easily picked her up.

"That's right, but you should be careful of them for a couple of days. Until they realize how much power the True Rune grants it's easy to actually crush someone's rib when you only meant to give them a hug." The vampire pointed out.

Which made one more wonderful thing which the two new True Rune bearers would have to worry about. On the other hand it explained pretty well why this time Jowy didn't say a single thing when James picked up Pilika (while Mirri hoisted Nanami to her shoulders) and took off at a quick trot.

Riou followed them adopting a similar pace as did Jowy. They were both still waiting to start feeling tired an hour later.

End Chapter six.


	7. Chapter 7

Ronin Trip

Book two: Wild dogs and hunting wolves

Firecat Note: Whoops, this chapter used to also be called "chapter six" even though it was always meant to be chapter seven, my bad, well that's fixed now!

Chapter seven: Thank you God for fixing the cataracts of Sam's mom!

"I take it the fact that your here means that thing have gone wrong?" Sighed Mayor Anabelle of Muse as she looked at Alexander and Diamondclaw and Florence Bastien seated before her.

"Yes. But if we lost the fort I'm proud to say that Highland did not gain control of it. I leveled it, and it probably took a good number of men in their process." Alexander responded while clasping his hands together calmly.

Anabelle like most people in a somewhat desperate situation, found humor wherever they could.

"And here I thought the Prophets of Destruction were unbeatable in combat." She sniffed derisively.

In response Alexander shrugged awkwardly, his chair was a bit too small for him, but then so were most chairs he ran into.

"We're unbeatable in war, but that is not the same thing as unbeatable of combat. We lost the first round but your nation and Highland have been fighting each other for how long now? One victory over some wooden fort on the border between the two nations isn't going to decide the war.

I may have lost the battle but I did gain the measure of Luca Blight. He's... he has the makings of a foe the likes of which I have not encountered in a very long time." Alexander reflected closing his eyes as he went into deep reflection.

Anabelle squinted slowly at the mercenary leader.

"Well isn't that just wonderful for all of us." She continued half chiding Alex.

"It is not wonderful it is awesome, or at least awe inspiring. The final battle between us... it will be one for the history books of that I am sure, though honestly I am far from sure who will be the victor." Alexander reflected.

"I could do with less of you singing Luca Blight's praises. Not when he seems perfectly positioned to overun this city if not all of Jowston. If nothing else, he still has an army at his back and I noticed you failed to bring yours back with you." Anabelle huffed in disapproval.

Alexander huffed in disapproval himself at that point.

"It's hardly 'my army' they're just a bunch of mercenaries you placed in my hands to try and stop an onslaught of seasoned veterans. Still, I did manage to inflict a good number of casualties with them. If they're worth the contracts they took then they'll be arriving in Muse within the week barring any unfortunate events.

I would be quite surprise if Luca launches any sort of major pursuit of those retreating from the fort. I left him in a rather 'indisposed' manner as I departed you see. Still, I suggest you get to work gathering your forces, and I don't just mean those of the city.

Far be it for a general to tell a mayor how to run her nation's army, but if Luca Blight wants to hurl whatever remaining strength Highland has at us, we should be ready to have it break upon all the strength that we can still muster.

Because if he does not break upon us, then he will break us. With your leave I'll get going to make plans for the defense of the city." Alexander concluded with a brief nod.

"Of course, I'm sure that Jess has some important paperwork for me to handle before it all gets incinerated." Anabelle granted his request.

Alexander gave her a rather wry smile, stood up and headed for the door. Though Anabelle had one last question for him before he left.

"By the way, I distinctly remember that there were six Prophets of Destruction and yet my guards report letting only four of you into the city. Where are the other two?" She wanted to know.

"If you think they fell in battle banish they thought. They're simply looking after something that I think will help everyone in your nation understand the danger Luca Blight presents without having him set their homes on fire first." He reassured her.

XXX XXX XXX

Riou had been running fairly hard all day, and he was coming to understand the meaning of the expression "Runners Insight" for the first time in his life.

He was tired, but it was a side note, it didn't get in the way of his running, and his legs ached only slightly and still bore his weight well. But what amazed him even more than his own suddenly new found abilities, was watching James and Mirri run.

It was clear from their stance that they were holding back. It had never occurred to him how Cal and Devi could have arrived so soon after Alexander had when they'd been retreating to the fort but now he had some idea.

By the time the sun was starting to go down they had reached an inn that James claimed was halfway between Toto and Muse. Riou wasn't so sure about that himself, but he did know that the six of them had been covering ground at an incredible rate for people on foot.

The tavern door said "The White Deer Inn" and it seemed to be calm and completely unaware of the war it would soon be swept up in. However no sooner had they walked in side then they seemed to have another problem drop straight into their laps.

A man dressed in a simple brown vest and white shirt looked at them from behind the desk as if they were a gifts from above.

"Is one of you the doctor?" He practically pleaded.

James looked down at his collection of knives (he had returned them to their sheaths after throwing them at Riou) as if wondering if even the most unhinged surgeon would posses so many of them, but he responded with his usual affability.

"No, we're just people on our way to the Muse, why is something wrong?" The vampire answered.

The man's blue eyes could not have shouted desperation any louder.

"My wife Hilda is sick, I sent one of my guests off to the Muse to try and bring a doctor and he hasn't come back yet. I had hopped that one of you might be able to do something to help her." He lamented.

Mirri at once took control of the conversation.

"None of us are doctors, but we might be able to do something to help if you show her to us." She offered in a surprisingly compassionate tone of voice.

The man nodded along clearly ready to take any help they could find. Riou was ready to sit down, but James (with one arm still busy making sure Pilika didn't fall as best he could) dragged him along without any sort of warning. Mirri did the same thing with Jowy, and Nanami followed along of her own will.

The inn's owner lead them into a room where a woman who looked to be about the same age as he did (past if not well past thirty, certainly older looking than Mirri) was laying in bed with her eyes closed. Mirri put her hand to the woman's head and withdrew it quite quickly.

"That's one high fever, nothing I can do about it. Riou get over here and heal her." She commanded confidently.

Everyone open pair of eyes (even Pilika's) except Mirri and James' focused intently on Riou after that sentence had been spoken.

Riou tried to carefully articulate his response but gave up fairly quickly.

"What are you talking about?" He eventually managed to respond.

Mirri grabbed his wrist and pulled him over so that the wife of the inn's owner was within his reach.

"Do I have to spell it out? Put your right hand on her head, and maker her better. That's what the Bright Shield Rune does, it makes people better. So use it and heal her." She muttered in exasperation.

Riou looked at the True Rune on his hand then glared at Mirri.

"How exactly do you know what it does when I don't?" James' voice took on the slightly annoyed tone of one who had to explain something incredibly simple to a child.

"The same way reasonable people find out anything about anyone, you talk with them." As he spoke James' voice shifted slightly to it's traditional more whimsical tone.

"Well to tell the True Rune's own truth, it's not so much that we talk to them, as our True Runes talk to yours and then we hear it secondhand. I mean how do you think I knew just what you were capable of so that I didn't do any real damage to you while training?" He pondered aloud.

Riou was about to point out that Jowy's impressive set of bruises would probably if not permanent would still be hanging around for quite a while. Except that when he looked over, after a day of hard running his friend looked better than he should have after a week of bed rest. Riou shook the implications of that event off and focused on the current problem that he had been tasked with like any good solider.

"Okay fine, I don't suppose at some point it told you how I'm suppose to use it?" Riou asked in irritation.

James shook his head in a most elaborate manner but his voice was deadly serious.

"Of course not. There's a scared bond between a True Rune and the person it's bonded with. Blood and Trickster didn't finally open up to each other for years, and years, and years, and years..." The nay-kobold said, his voice a hushed whisper.

Mirri cut in before James could elaborate with a story that wandered away from what truly mattered as surely as a drunkard sooner or later couldn't stay on the road.

"The upshot of which is you'll just have to ask it yourself?" She concluded.

"Out loud?" Ironically Riou ended up saying that himself a little bit louder than he intended to, and he could tell at once by the look on their faces in less serious circumstances the mercenaries would have been having (another) rollicking laugh at his expense.

"No, True Runes don't speak that way. Ask it with your mind. Try thinking and see what happens." It truly was impressive the way that Mirri spoke the phrase in just such a way as to suggest that Riou had never attempted had particular activity before.

But he was in no position to argue, he had to at least try.

/Umm... hey you there?\ He thought as "loudly" as possible.

/Yes...\ The voice had a cool soothing sound to it as well as the soft lilting tones of a woman.

/Okay then, do you have the power to heal this woman?\

/I can mend all the wounds that pitched battle can inflict short of death.\

/So I take it that means you can treat a fever?\

/Easily. Simply place me, by which I mean your right hand on her forehead and I'll do the rest.\

Riou did as he was told.

A green glow surrounded and then left his hand. A moment later Riou could easily feel the woman's head growing cooler as her fever faded away. She smiled at the inn's owner as her eyes slowly opened.

"Oh honey I feel so tired..." She mumbled, before her eyes closed and she fell asleep again, but it was obvious that her breath was considerably less labored than it had been.

"Thank you! Thank you! We don't have much business at the moment so we have plenty of rooms! You can a couple of them free of charge!" The inn's owner exclaimed, babbling worse than Nanami ever had.

Riou suddenly realized that he felt noticeably far more tired than he had a few seconds ago. But it wasn't much of a problem since the only task left that he needed strength for at the moment was to make his way up to a bed and fall into it.

XXXX XXX XXX XXX

Riou found himself looking up into James' face as he found himself once again having his sleep interrupted.

"What is it this time around?" He asked sourly discovering that he was getting far too used to this kind of thing.

James pulled Riou out of his bed and lead him over to a window.

"That's the problem." The nay-kobold announced while waving a hand dramatically.

Outside the inn was a giant two headed green... well snake worked best since it had no legs. It was currently having its attention lured away from the inn itself by Mirri luckily. One of the blue gem like outlines on one of the snakes heads glowed. A number of crystal materilized above it and then rained razor sharp down on the vampire.

Except that she managed to dodge about half of them and the other half which tore into (or even lodged in) her body didn't seem to bother her in the slightest.

James then turned and proceeded to empty his canteen in the direction of Jowy (he and Riou had been sharing a room) and succeeded in splashing him with a reasonable amount of it.

Jowy came awake instnatly, spluttering and cursing n the process. He took a look out the window, and then back at James.

"She seems to be doing well enough on her own. Why bother waking us up?" Jowy asked bitterly.

Riou felt James' hand on the back of his neck, and it sent a shiver up his spine.

"We're not going to carry you to Muse on our shoulders literally, do you want us to do it figuratively? I'm not quite sure what that thing is after but it may be one of the countless monsters out there that hunt after runes, true or otherwise. So why don't you guys go kick its ass with your bare hands?" He explained.

Jowy cocked his eyebrows at the nay-kobald.

"Your serious?" Jowy inquired in a tone that suggested James was even more out of his mind than usual.

The mercenary just shook his head in a profound manner which his words would doubtlessly be unable to live up to.

"Of course not. You should bring your weapons with you when you go downstairs. Now if you excuse me, I'm going to go say hello to Mirri."

James then carefully raised the window and jumped out.

Riou and Jowy contemplated his actions for only the breifest moment before coming to the exact same conclusion.

"Let's take the stairs." The two said in perfect unison.

Then they grabbed their weapons raced out of the inn to be confronted with a rather odd scene. James and Mirri had clasped hands and were paying no particular attention to the monster at all.

"Okay then, your right hand goes there and now we start..." Mirri instructed calmly.

As another attack was launched at them the pair quickly darted to the side, Mirri extending her hand outwards so that James could do a rather impressive spin in the process, even raising onto a single uplifted foot at one point.

"I think I've got it this time Mirri, but what do I do with my tail?" James responded.

As he spoke the two took a few more steps together, and spun around fast as the right head darted for them but only grabbed empty air.

"Why don't you just do what feels right?" Mirri offered.

James wrapped his plumed tail around his left arm and when the monster came for them again, the two jumped.

They landed on the monster's back and continued to dance speaking loudly enough that their voice still carried over to Riou and Jowy quite well.

"Your really getting better at it this time around James, would you like to try and lead?" Mirri noted.

"No thanks Mirri whenever I try to lead I end up feeling like I've got four right paws. Let's work on mastering my following first." James shot back.

The monster, not able to move it's neck very far instead of trying to get at the two on its back instead turned towards Riou and Jowy. Once more Riou realized that he had been perfectly manipulated, as he no had no choice but to defend himself.

A process which started with him rolling to the side to avid having a mouthful of sharp teeth closing on him.

Jowy moved forward faster than Riou had expected him to, and even managed to slam his staff into the side of the head that almost grabbed Riou before backpedaling when the monster's other head came for him.

"Just try it, nobody harms my friends and gets away with it, not any more!" Jowy shouted angrily at the monster.

Jowy's right hand somehow managed to "glow black" (it was at this point that Riou suddenly realized he was seeing much better in near darkness than he should have been able to) and three dark swords materialized above the monster.

They descended and the monster let out a loud hiss of pain, and a small fountain of blood spluttered out of it. "HEY WATCH IT!"

James and Mirri had apparently just avoided being on the receiving end of Jowy's magical attack. The monster growled and slithered forward but its two opponents (who weren't busy dancing) kept moving backwards. "I think we need some kind of strategy to beat this thing. I mean it's got one head to attack each of us."

"Well since it isn't doing anything about James, and Mirri probably can't move around very well. Let's both shift to the right, then it can only bring one head to bare on us." Jowy suggested.

Riou responded with a silent nod and then the two began to circle around the head which Jowy had already hit once with his staff. Instead of trying to seize them in it's jaws this time around the monster tried to use it's impressive neck as a weapon.

It swung the head in their direction, trying to crush them under it. Jowy jumped over it slamming his staff into the side of the thing's neck once again. Riou slide under the thing since his weapons needed less room to be properly handled and managed to land a few blows of his own before he had to quickly jump back to avoid getting smushed.

Normally Riou would have felt that such blows were an exercise in futility, after all the thing was quite large and it's skin should have been tough enough to take anything he could dish out. But when he been letting the monster have it he could tell that his strikes were powerful enough to cause discomfort and pain. If he had been fighting a human opponent he probably would have easily been causing broken bones.

/That's your doing isn't it?\ He asked his True Rune.

/Do you find it unpleasing?\ It shot back literally at the speed of thought.

The monster finished turning enough to bring both heads to bare upon them again and a yellow gem like pattern on the other head flashed. A bolt of lighting shot of out they sky and Riou just barley managed to get out of the way. Jowy wasn't so lucky, the bolt of lightning kept going through the space that Riou had just vacated. That meant it It struck a tree behind him, and the tree collapsed pinning Jowy under a large branch.

Riou raced over to his friend and considering his two choices. In the end rather than trying to free his friend the old fashioned way he let lose with a torrent of blows against the branch sending pieces of wood flying through the air.

Eventually the branch snapped off, and without the entire weight of the tree basically holding him down, Jowy easily slipped free. His staff however had already done the same thing from his hands when the tree branch had first pinned him and the monster was currently coiling itself around it.

"Damn it, give me back my staff!" Jowy's demanded before suddenly his hand glowed again and a pair of black swords materialized to the sides of the monster. The dark blades rushed forward and sliced into the sides of the monster, then vanished just as quickly as they had come.

This made the creature writhe and twist in pain away from Jowy's staff.

"That's the spirit you two, keep at it!" Mirri shouted encouragement without any sings of joining the fight herself.

As the monster was busy recovering form the attack Jowy raced forward grabbed his staff and darted back with as much celerity as he could muster.

/Dam, can't you do anything useful like that?\ Riou asked his rune.

/Anything useful? I'm already greatly increasing your fighting abilities. But if you wish, there is no such thing as a perfect defense without the capacity to strike back.\ It responded.

The rune on his hand flashed green and four beams of light shot out from it. They went right into the monster's eyes and it suddenly began to move about even more wildly than it had before.

"Good going Riou, you temporarily blinded it!" Jowy congratulated him.

For a moment Riou was too busy being surprised at his own success to do anything, but only for a moment.

"Yeah, now let's finish the job!" He declared once he regained his bearings. The pair raced at the monster and with impressive synchronization they jumped onto the monster's heads.

Then Riou drove down one of his tonfas into either of the monster's eyes on the right head. Jowy meanwhile made two quick stabs with the end of his staff one into each eye and then jumped off.

Now well and truly blinded, the monster kept turning around thumping it's heads on the ground as it went. Jowy gave an exasperated sigh.

"Why don't you just die?" Jowy reflected before his hand lowed black again, and the largest black sword so far materialized.

It raced right at the monster and did not stop, cutting the monster in half in the process. James and Mirri were rather awkwardly caught one on either side of the monster's body as the blade struck. Rather then letting themselves be pulled together into the guts which the monster was currently spilling out over the ground they simply let go of each other's hands before bowing to one another like proper nobles ending a dance.

"Not bad work at all you two, looks like you even managed to learn how to manifest your Rune's Power. You can go back to your rooms now, if something else comes along we'll handle it on our own." Mirri half priased half ordered them.

Not that he was in much of a position to argue, it was only now that the fight was over that Riou realized that yes he doubtlessly was quite ready to go finish up tonight's sleep.

However on his way up the stairs, he remembered the wolves on the way back to the mercenary base. Mirri had needed only one look to send them packing. If she could dispatch wild monsters that easily, what was to say that she couldn't call them? Had that "test" been one in the truest sense of the word, arranged just to see him work with his powers.

But as they had pointed out, their abilities hadn't just been on display but improved. Well if they were trying to improve their abilities, why? Riou realized the answer almost at once. They wanted to make them into real soldiers, no something just shy of a Prophet of Destruction so that they would be able to do the maximum amount of damage to Highland. The real question was, what could they do about it if they didn't want to roll over and die?

FN: Yes I realize this clear cuts straight through some plot points, but come on if the Bright Sheild can make someone who's been stabbed and shot by arrows as good as new (healing in battle) you think it would be able to bring a fever down!


	8. Chapter 8

Ronin Trip

Book two: Wild dogs and hunting wolves

Chapter Eight: Show me how to lie, you're getting better all the time.

They set out in the morning Riou feeling none the worse for his fight last night. They managed to reach Muse by noon. Mirri gave the guards a quick look and the gates swung open.

Mirri had put down Nanami before they had come within sight of the Muse's guards, but the moment they were through the gates she grabbed hold her hand tightly.

"James, show them where the tavern is. Me and Nanami are gonna go shopping." The vampire explained.

Riou was going to ask her what they were going to buy, but somehow, something deeper and older in him than even the Bright Shield Rune, told him not to.

As those two took off at a sedate walk, James headed for the city's inn. As James pushed the door opened Cal and Devi came down to the stairs. The two mercenaries had extremely dour looks on their faces.

"If Alexander thinks we're going to follow that plan, he's flipping his silver lid." Cal reflected dourly.

Devi nodded, giving her flail a couple of quick impatient snaps before both of them departed. Alexander followed them down the stairs a few moments later, looking not quite as combative as he had when looking at Luca Blight, but still far from being in a good mood. His face did break into a smile when he saw them however.

"Ahh, Riou and Jowy, I'm glad to see you. If you'd come with me, Mayor Anabelle should have an opening in her schedule coming up soon." Alexander informed them.

Riou was ready for a rest, but how often had he wanted that and how often had he gotten it recently?

Nanami was glad that Mirri had let go of her hand once they were heading in the right direction. When they held hands, Nanami wasn't sure if she felt like a younger sister or a child.

"So what are we going shopping for exactly?" Nanami inquired.

"You really care about your brother don't you?" The vampire responded with a breathless non sequitur.

Rather than try and struggle against the flow of conversation Nanami just gave in.

"Yes. Well brother in law really, Master Genkaku took him in not long after he did me, the only thing that we truly have in common is that we were both orphans before we got adopted." She answered.

"That's about what I figured. At the end of the day what matters most is that you don't want to see him die.

Of course now that he's got a True Rune he's just that much more likely to get into risky situations.

So one way or another, you're probably going to have to do what you can to look after him. Which at the moment won't be much, since he has a True Rune anything he can't handle, you won't be able to even scratch. Which is why we're going to go to the Rune Shop and a buy you a Boar Rune." Mirri finally explained.

Nanami knew a couple of things about the man made runes, but nothing in particular about how they were made, and she had previously relied in the runes name to suggest what it did.

"What does a Boar Rune do?" She just barely had time to ask before Mirri reached her chosen destination.

A bell tingled, but a customer was already doing business, so Mirri simply lowered her voice slightly.

"They're a fairly new creation out of Harmonia, and I'd be surprised if we could find one anywhere in Jowston besides here. Of course some people say that Harmonia is making more of then than they care to let on to keep the prices high. Still, that's an economic and politics lesson for another time.

A Boar Rune grants someone about 85% of the increases in physical abilities that someone recently bonded with a True Rune gains, even if it doesn't do anything else. It's the rune of choice for mercenaries, soldiers, or anyone else who has a large axe to grind." Mirri answered.

The customer ahead of them took his purchase and left. Mirri took one look at the owner of the rune store who was a woman well into middle age.

"I'm sure you heard what we're looking for, and while normally I derive a little pleasure in a good battle of offers, I've got more important things to do right now. So here's my one and only offer, I'll just wait here while you find me a Boar Rune." Mirri stated calmly before reaching into a pocket of her jacket, pulling out a bundle of bills tied together with string. She then slowly ran a finger along them so that it was possible to see that each bill was the exact same denomination as the first.

The owner's shop bulged wide at the sight and then she nodded, throwing in a curtsy as an afterthought.

"Of course my lady, I think I've got one in the back if you'll give me a moment." The shop's owner said with a quickly bobbing head.

Mirri waved her off like a queen would a servant. A about a minute later she returned clutching a rune, and Mirri spent a few moments looking over it before she handed it back.

"This will do fine. Now meld it to my companion's right hand." She instructed.

Nanami extended her right hand, and the woman pressed the rune into the palm of her hand. Somehow her hand yielded against the rune, like a stone sinking into water. Then it finally subsided and Mirri nodded her approval.

"Thank you.,." Nanami mumbled, not sure which of the older woman she should have been addressing.

Mirri flashed Nanami a quick smile as they left.

"That'll take care of things for now. The big advantage between that Boar Rune and what Riou has is that thing in your arm is just a stone, not a physical representation of a power that has existed all the way back to the beginning of the Suikoden as we know it. Which means you don't have to learn to work with it, you can just use and abuse it.

That said, there's no one who can't get a little better with some training. If you don't have anything better to do, this afternoon you can attend Mirri Catwarrior teaches combat, or you don't have to be a monster to be part of a monstrous regiment." Mirri joked.

Nanami looked at the rune on her hand, and remembered the embarrassment that being carried by Mirri from the Muse to Toto had brought about.

"Sure, and thank you..." Nanami repeated the phrase a second time, now certain she intended to address her words to the vampire.

Mirri disregarded her praises without a second's hesitation.

"For what? Saving your lives? Anyone with a scrap of human decency would have done he same thing. I have a good memory and I still can't recall what it feels like to have my heart beat, but that doesn't make me heartless. Besides, the brain controls your emotions, the heart is just something that has had more importance heaped on it like it's deserved. Size is another one for example, but that's a story for another day.

As for the money, well like James said we've been around for a long time, and we didn't get that way by running from fights, we won them, and we collected on our contracts, and we've managed to hold onto a lot of the money also.

Between the six of us... well if Cal had the free time and enough of his dyes to draw up money that had our faces on it instead of some king, queen, grand duke, emperor, or whatever, shops all across Suikoden would take them.

They would take them and smile because rulers come and go but mercenaries like us are forever.

As for teaching you to defend yourself, believe me that's my pleasure. One of the first things I learned as I grew into being a vampire as opposed to growing up as a human was that women can make every bit as capable fighters and leaders as men. Nobody, and I mean nobody in their right mind would mess with Sierra..." At that last word Mirri's speech came to a sudden an abrupt stop.

A single red droplet started to form in her right eye but she shut it tight, shook her head, and when her eyes opened again it was gone.

"Never mind, just memories of an old and dear friend, very old and very dear. The fact of the mater is that just because we're female doesn't mean that swords will try to jump out of our hands as soon as we grasp the hilts. And even if they do it's not a big deal, sword, staff, or anything else, any fight starts with your own body, and it would be my pleasure to help learn how to control yours better." Mirri promised.

"It would be my pleasure to learn." Was the only thing Nanami could think of one thing to say in response.

Riou was starting to feel like a hunting dog, or really any kind of trained animal would have fit his analogy. He knew some particular tricked that was impressive or important to the people around him, so every so often he would be dragged out to preform it. Then he we would be swiftly booted out of the room before he made a mess on the carpeted floor.

He had done it once for Alexander concerning Pilika, and then he had done it again for Mayor Anabelle. Once he and Jowy had finished telling their story they had been promptly removed from the room.

No particular force was needed, just the look that the adults in the room gave them, made it quite clear that they could either leave with some dignity or be escorted out like children.

They had chosen the former.

So now here they were simply standing in the hallway, casually debating whether they should wait for the discussion to end or head back to the inn on their own. After all in their current situation is hardly like the needed to be worried about the possibility of being attacked by some random cutpurse. They had both been fairly confident in their skills after joining the Unicorn Brigade, and now that they had True Runes (and gloves over them) a mugging was the last thing they had to worry about.

Just as they finishing up their conversation and had decided to head for the inn, a man who was just walking by stopped suddenly.

"Excuse me, I couldn't help but notice your accents, are you two from Highland?" He asked both of them with a quizzically raised eyebrow.

Riou and Jowy shared a look but weren't about to say anything more. In the end Jowy settled for a simple.

"Why do you ask?" In the most gruff tone of voice he could manage.

The man had brown hair, green eyes, and a remarkably bright yellow set of pants.

"My name is Jess, I'm the Mayor's assistant. I'm asking because if you are from Highland, then you're just perfect for something that I have in mind. We know that the Highland army isn't far away from Muse, but we need to sneak someone into their camp and get a look at their main supply tent.

By how much they have in the way of supplies we can tell if they're planning to lay siege to the city or simply assault it. We've managed to secure a few uniforms but instead of being those of regular soldiers, they're Unicorn Brigade outfits for 'soldiers' about your age." Jess reflected as he sized the pair up.

The quotes Riou could feel him emphasizing around that last "soldiers" were not well received by either of them.

"Thank you for your inspiring words concerning group of men we served with and had to watch die." Jowy scoffed bitterly.

Jess baulked in shock, like most bureaucrats (one of the few things that both Highland and Jowston could agree with) he had no experience dealing with real soldiers, even ones form the Unicorn Brigade.

"I'm sorry. I didn't know." He mumbled in surprise.

"Like it matters. Listened, if it will hurt Highland then I'll do it, right Riou?" Jowy offered.

Riou looked at his friend, surprised how readily he had jumped at Jess' plan. But on the reflection, Jowy had already decided he would fight to protect Pilika, and the only way to do that was to stop Highland.

Besides, what Alexander had said back at the fort still held true, they would only be safe when Highland was no longer in a position to try and kill them.

"That's wonderful, I'll get you the uniforms and some horses, and hopefully you should be able to blend in fairly well with the rest of the Highland army. Ohh and I'll be glad to get you a fresh meal also!" Jess said with the kind of pathetic half hearted smile that bureaucrats were known for.

Well at least Jess seemed to be a bureaucrat who was trying to make the world a better place rather than the one of the ones who enjoyed seeing other people suffer.

"Hey, what are you Unicorn Brigade kids doing here?" Yelled out a guard to the camp in general more than Riou and Jowy in particular.

After a long horse ride they had dismounted and more or less sneaked in as best they could trying not to stand out however pathetically obvious they felt. They had managed to get by unobserved, up until the point that they approached the largest tent that was obviously where supplies were being kept.

Riou answered with first thing that came to mind.

"We're the survivors of the Unicorn Brigade that those dirty State dogs attacked! So we're attached to this unit to help as best we can. One of the officers need us to get a couple pounds of butter. If you don't trust us, we'll take you to him and you two can talk it out." Riou hadn't been out of the Highland army that long, and he was quite sure that one thing in particular hadn't changed, no ordinary grunt who was standing sentry wanted to tell a commander he'd left it to ask a question.

"Okay then, go on in. Just be quick about it." The guard grunted.

The two entered and Jowy let out a low whistle.

"Wow Riou, you must be learning, I didn't think you'd be able to come up with something that smooth." He half complimented his friend.

The two needed only one look at the stacks of boxes to come to a conclusion.

"They've got a lot less stuff in here than I thought they would from the size of the tent. They can't have plans for a long drawn out siege if this is all they've got. Come on lets go." Riou reflected before heading fro the door.

Just before he could depart however Jowy grabbed his shoulder.

"What?" Riou whispered in irritation.

"We come in here after telling that guy we were going to get some butter, what is that guy gonna think if don't have any when we walk out?" Jowy asked with a smirk.

Riou nodded and quickly grabbed a couple slabs of butter, and then walked out. At which point he discovered that however well intentioned, Jowy's warning did them not a single lick of good.

Captain Rowd was walking by the front of the tent, when they came out. He took one look at them, and Riou suddenly wished he had gotten some of whatever Mirri had used to change her hair color. It probably wouldn't have done hat much difference, but it was nice to wish.

"TRAITORS! ARREST THEM!" Rowd bellowed after only a moment of shocked surprise.

Riou was closest to the guard and Jowy was still holding the butter. He gave his tonfas a quick twirl, and then leaped into the air. His brought his tonfas down hard on the guard's helmet in a rapid succession of blows.

The first one left only a noticeable dent in the metal, but by the time his feet touched the ground however the helmet skull underneath the helmet had given way. Rowd gazed in open amazement at the fallen solider while (after having tossed aside the useless butter) Jowy gave his staff a couple of quick twists.

"Come on Rowd, let's see just how strong your loyalty to Highland is!" Jowy declared confidently.

Rowd's loyalty apparently wasn't as strong as it could have been.

"Everyone get up! The two boys dressed in Unicorn Brigade uniforms are spies! Capture them, kill them!" The Highland Captain cried out.

He ran off shouting as he went trying to awaken as much of the camp as possible.

"We've got no chance if we run for it, let's find some place to hide!" Jowy suggested.

Commander Rowd walked into the second largest tent in the Highland camp.

"Excuse me Princess Jillia but I have my orders, but I fear that we have some spies loose in the camp, and I have to search your tent to make sure they aren't hiding within." Rowd informed her in as polite a tone of voice as he could manage.

Princess Jillia was typically considered to be a woman as unlike her brother as anyone could imagine. However as she looked at Rowdy, her normally serene blue eyes were twin icy pikes.

"Very well Commander... Rowd was it? However, if you insist on searching my personal quarters, I will have to let my brother know that you felt your own men could not prevent spies form entering said private quarters.

Which in turns means that you could not have kept out assassins either. I do hope that my brother's fondness for me would not in turn lead him to rash actions regarding those who allowed me to come to such a perilous state. Oh and I do hope that these spies are no relation to the ones I saw you preparing to execute in Kayo." Each and every one of Jillia's words were so pointed you could have pinned Rowd to the side of the tent with them.

Rowd gave the princess a slow and quite meticulous bow, practically touching his head to the floor.

"On second thought Princess you quarters are beyond reproach. I'll just be going now." Rowd said with a quick before scampering from the room.

Jillia watched Rowd leave, and then took a very deep breath. "You can come out now." She informed her two unwanted guests.

Riou and Jowy crept out from behind the curtains that they had been hiding in.

"Wow... I can't believe you..." Riou tried to praise the Princess' performance but all that came out was half garbled gibberish.

Jillia's eyes were still ice cold as she looked at Jowy, totally disregarding Riou's attempts to thank her.

"In Highland it is hardly considered proper to hold a drawn knife on someone while they are trying to make polite conversation. But perhaps you have simply acclimatize to the barbaric, or so I'm told, ways of Jowston with a vengeance." Jillia commented wielding sarcasm with the same force her brother did a sword.

Jowy looked at the knife in his hand, and returned it to the inner folds of his Unicorn Brigade outfit which had a small pocket designed just to hold such a weapon.

"Sorry Princess Jillia. It's just..." Jowy struggled to try and find the right words but Jillia cut him off just as quickly as she had Riou.

"It's just this war. It tears up families, needlessly destroys lives and love. I wish it would end but if Jowston really did slaughter the Unicorn Brigade they must be made to pay for it..." Princess Jillia Blight ruminated sourly.

Since Jowy didn't seem about to speak up, Riou cut her off in turn.

"They didn't. Prince Luca did. Not literally, but he gave the orders. Then not so long later, he tried to kill of a little girl. We tried to stop him then, but he brushed us of with one blow." Riou could still remember how narrowly they had escaped death back at the fort.

Jowy gave his a light wrap on the ear before he could continue his speech.

"Riou, that's no way to talk about her brother!" He berated his friend.

Jillia however did not seem even seem surprised let alone outraged at Riou's words.

"I don't mind. You have known Luca for only a short while, and already the measure of his character. I have known it for my entire life, however I might wish to blind myself to the truth, one can only hold their eyes closed for so long.

My brother was always very kind to me, but in his dealings with others, he was very driven. Never outright cruel before, but the sheer ends he would go to... as the Prince of Highland, the heir to the throne, he should want for nothing... but not wanting for gold or food, he has apparently developed a want for war.

I'm afraid there is very little I can do to stop him, he would never allow me to come to harm, but even if I begged him to try and stop the war he would just have me tossed in the nicest dungeon he could find in either kingdom.

The bars themselves would probably be made of gold inlaid with silver for strength. I fear not for myself, but for my kingdom should whatever endeavor my brother has embarked on fail, and possibly for all of Suikoden if he succeeds.

I hope that whatever power somehow arranged for you two to escape the gallows I saw you perched on the last time we met, will let us meet again after the war ends. From your story you only wanted to serve Highland, and suffered greatly for it. Do you think you will ever forgive us?" Jillia's voice was filled with bitterness as she recalled her past and contemplated the future.

"Luca Blight, even Agares Blight is not Highland. One day, this will all be over, that's what we're fighting for isn't it Riou." As he spoke Jowy slowly retrieved his staff from where he had stashed it underneath the table.

Riou just nodded and headed for the door, though he couldn't help but notice that Jowy seemed to loath the idea of departing from Jillia's presence. But eventually he shook it off and the two departed.

Once more they tried to stealthily creep from behind one tent to another, but it did them little good. Rowd had a score of soldiers with him patrolling the only reasonable way out of the camp.

Riou knew that he was stronger and so was Jowy, but twenty one to two? Those were odds for Prophets of Destruction not two Unicorn Brigade survivors. Luckily before Riou could even start to fathom a plan Jowy already had one.

"I'll use my rune to get their attention. Then when they're busy chasing me you can get away." Jowy advised his friend.

"There's no way you can handle that many men on your own." Riou gulped in surprise.

Jowy slowly rubbed his right hand.

"I've got a better chance at it then you do. Besides, I probably won't have to fight all of them. Unless Rowd's a complete idiot he'll leave five or so behind. You handle them, race to our horses, and ride back to Muse. I'll make my way back sooner or later, trust me." Jowy promised him.

Riou trusted Jowy, did with every ounce of his being, so he began to carefully extend his right hand toward the blond haired youth.

"Okay then. Friends to the end?" He asked with a carefully raised eyebrow, daring Jowy to end up disappointing him.

"Of course." Jowy promised him with a quick shake of the hand.

Then he jumped out from behind the tent waving his staff around.

"Hey Rowd, looking for me?" Rowd indeed was and three of the soldiers who had crossbows in hands fired them. The arrows flew straight and true as those fired by soldiers with military weapons tended to do, but that did not guarantee they would strike their target.

That pause between when the arrows were fired and when they would arrive, was plenty of time for Jowy to readjust his staff between the first and the second, and the second and the third. All three arrows fell to the ground knocked aside by Jowy's staff.

Those soldiers dropped their crossbows and went for their swords, and several others already had them in hand.

"Get him!" Rowd commanded.

Jowy took off with Rowd and all but of four of the guards in pursuit. Riou watched them go waited another moment and then rubbed his right hand for luck.

/Ready?\ He asked mentally.

/Sleep, tiredness, and weariness are conditions that are unknown to me. It is only when your body is not able to effectively contain and channel my power that it seems to wain.\ The Bright Shield rune responded.

Riou took that as a "yes" and stepped out from behind the tent twirling his tonfas. The soldiers charged him, and Riou met them. This time he could actually feel the world slow down around him.

He ducked under one slash, blocked a downward cut, and then repaid the man with a quick tonfa strike to one of their chests. He blocked another slash with one hand, and his other to hammer the soldier's elbow.

That made him drop his sword and before he could respond, Riou threw in a quick kick to the wounded soldiers chest knocking him flat. Then in between blocking one strike and dodging another he realized that one of the soldiers was shorter than the others.

Short enough in fact that he could simply reach out and strike him upside the head, knocking him flat. That left two of them, one of whom happened to be in worse shape than the other due to the tonfa hit to the chest.

Riou finished him off with a tonfa to either kneecap, and then a knee to the jaw. The last soldier was starting to look a bit frightened but he didn't realize how afraid he should be till Riou blocked his sword with one tonfa, and then hit it with the other, shattering the blade.

As he was holding his broken weapon looking quite pathetic and shocked, Riou hit him with both tonfas on the chest beating down the armor till it and one of the mans ribs cracked. He dropped unconscious at that point, and Riou gave his tonfas another spin just for effect and then he took off out of the camp at the best run he could manage.

Getting back to the Muse was easy for Riou, but that just gave him more time to worry about what happened to Jowy.

When he got back he raced to the Mayor's residence, at once. He no sooner opened the door then felt a deadly serious hand seize around the throat. It gave one good squeeze and Riou felt his vision going black around the edges. He tried to breath, but he was feeling his lungs burning in a way he never had after jumping into the river.

Then suddenly the hand let lose with a not so gentle push accompanying it sending him to the floor. He began to pant, in a desperate rush for air.

"Feel that Riou Genkaku? I would so dearly love to throttle the other half of your life right out of you, but we can't always get what we want, that's life. Now then, talk fast because the fuse that is my patience is down to its last thread, and it's already vibrating like James' chest when Mirri scratches his ears." Alexander Diamondclaw informed hm.

It was truly amazing the way every time he came into direct contact with Alexander Diamondclaw, he came up with a more powerful event for Riou to remember him by. Jess was also in the waiting room, and he was apparently feeling even more fear than Riou was though for the moment

Alexander didn't care about the functionary however, all his attention was focused completely on Riou.

"Wars swallow experienced soldiers the way a tree swallows drops of water. Don't think you're invincible, you had no right to do what you did! There is only one way that you can gain redemption right now, and that is success, you better have it."

Riou opened his mouth, gathered air and then started to explain.

"I succeeded! I got in the tent, Highland only has enough supplies for about two weeks!" Riou babbled.

Alexander looked at Jess, his fingers going up and down Masamune's length slowly and carefully.

"There's your information, now take it to Anabelle she's smart enough to put it to good use unlike you." The mercenary general growled.

Jess vanished with a speed that apparently impressed even Alexander. Unfortunately that left Riou alone in his presence, and at the moment he couldn't see past the wolf that the silver haired man had once transformed into.

"Why the hell didn't you bring James and Mirri with you, get there help? I assume that the city of the Muse has more than two horses it can spare for vital military matters." Alexander asked pointedly.

Riou wished that Jowy was with him, not only so that he would not have to worr about Jowy's safety, but so that he wouldn't be alone under the burden of Alexander's rage.

"We were the only ones who could pass as Highland soldiers. You people don't have the accent, you can't even make it sound like your someone who grew up on the boarder." Riou gave the first answer that had come to mind.

Alexander's eyes narrowed, his eyebrows rising slightly.

"Oh really? Well then don't you just know everything there is to know about us?" He spoke the words in a perfect upper class Highland accent, the exact same accent voice that Luca Blight had used and their tones were unpleasantly similar.

After those words however Alexander resumed his normal accent, the one that Riou couldn't place as anything but foreign.

"If they had been on hand, then I doubt you would be the only one who came back. Congratulations, your own mistakes most likely just got your best friend wounded, captured, or killed. Think about that, and it'll do more to torment you than I could even if I had the time." He predicted with his usual confidence.

The sad thing was, Riou knew he was 100 percent absolutely right.

Nanami was only slightly less upset about what happened to Jowy than Riou was. Which was how he had gotten to his current position. Sitting outside the Muse' steps on what had started as a chill afternoon but was now rapidly turning into a cold night.

"You can go back if you want." His sister reminded him.

Riou brushed off those words for what had to be at least the ninth time.

"Nanami no offense intended but I was way closer to Jowy then you where. There is no way that I'm going to leave you here waiting for him. In fact, I should be asking that question to you, not the other way around." Riou contemplated somberly.

Nanami stayed quite for a while just like she always did after getting that answer, but nothing good could last.

"Your right. He'd feel let down if you weren't here to great him." The brown haired girl admitted.

The silence returned until it was broken by the arrival of a third person who intended to wait for Jowy to arrive.

"Pilika, come over here..." Nanami offered.

The young girl went to the somewhat older one's side at her urging, and Nanami gave her a good look before speaking again.

"You shouldn't be out this late. It's too cold for someone your age to be running about, you might catch a cold." Nanami chided her.

Pilika still couldn't talk, but her eyes spoke volumes to both Riou and Nanami.

She, just like they did had a great burning desire to see Jowy return all right. Since Pilika was looking at Riou he just kept quite till Nanami eventually voiced the conclusion that he had already come to.

"Okay, you can stay with us and wait for Jowy for a while." Nanami lamented.

So together all three of them waited, each one struck mute by the mutual fear and hope dwelling within them. Finally just when Riou was about to tell Nanami to take Pilika back to the inn, a figure came into view.

Riou was up first, in fact to such a great degree that for a moment Nanami looked quite surprised. But when she followed him carrying Pilika with her she soon saw the same thing he had.

Jowy was slowly making his way towards the Muse using his staff to help him guide each step he took. His clothing was dirty and torn and he looked like he had been through a lot, but Riou couldn't see anything really wrong with him, there certainly wasn't any noticeable blood splotches on him.

"Jowy you're all right!" He cried out in delight. Nanami and Pilika both gave Jowy tight hugs, and ended up supporting him as she started to gratefully fall into their arms barely keeping his feet.

"It wasn't easy, but I made it back Riou." Jowy declared proudly.

There was nothing more that needed to be said. Or could be said as Jowy closed his eyes and started to snore loudly even while he was standing, or at least being held up.


	9. Chapter 9

Ronin Trip

Book two: Wild dogs and hunting wolves

Chapter nine: Where did I go wrong? I lost a friend somewhere along in the bitterness...

The next morning all four friends, grateful to be reunited scarfed down a hearty breakfast at the inn where the Prophets of Destruction were staying. James more or less hurled a hansom tip in the owner's direction in another display of how loose he was with his money. Either that, or he felt the 5000 potch meal that the five (Mirri as usual never ate anything) had gotten (and Riou found more filling than tasty) was worth rewarding with an additional 3000 potch tip.

"There's something you kids might find interesting going on today." James predicted jovially.

Riou still found James' (and especially Mirri's) habit of referring to them as "kids" annoying. However he had managed to mostly keep rage, embarrassment, or any other emotion from getting to him when they did it.

After all, in retrospect the fact that James was over ten times his age, (and Mirri probably older) meant they were children by comparison. James apparently wanted to keep exactly what the event was a secret but Mirri had other ideas.

"Stop giving the poor things delusions of grandeur James, the way you say you'd think a carnival was coming to town. It's just that there is going to be a meeting of the six other heads of Jowston who in addition to Anabelle will set the course of the nation. I can think of ten more fun ways to pass the time already and number nine is cleaning my nails." To accentuate her point she tapped her right hand on the table though as always it was covered by a white glove.

James however seemed quite interested by the idea of the meeting.

"Oh come on Mirri, we'll get to see Alex give another one of his talks that would get anybody else chased out of town by a mob waving torches and pitchforks! Those are always loads of fun!" James predicted.

Mirri took a few seconds to tap her left hand on the table while he right stayed still for change.

"True enough. But every so often they still do get us chased out of town on by a mob with the torches and pitchforks. But its also usually how he starts any debate before the bureaucrats can start bullshitting each other, which means we can go and sneak out as soon as the boring part starts, or before they've finished lighting all the torches as the need arises.

You kids should come along, it will give you an idea of what kind of people we have to put up with and that might help you acquire some empathy for us." Mirri was certainly right about Riou having something less than a strong empathy for the vampire and nay-kobold (the vampire in particular) and he got the feeling if they didn't go willing then they (or at least he and Jowy) might still be dragged to the event by the ears. It was a constant struggle to maintain his dignity dealing with these two, he had to take whatever small victories he could find.

XXX XXX XXX XXX

Riou had wondered how it was that Alexander's speeches had acquired the reputation they had among his men. Once things got started however he didn't have to wonder very long.

No sooner had everyone been seated then Alexander rose from his seat which was decently far back from the main table where the seven leaders of Jowston were sitting with the aids standing nearby.

Alexander simply jumped over everyone in front of him, and then landed directly in front of the balcony so that he could vault it just for the effect. He landed down on the first floor without flinching. A guard who was unlucky enough to be in his way got a quick shove and a leg sweep that left him laying on the floor before he knew what was happening.

Then to top it off, Alexander took a casually hop to land on top of the table that he delegates were seated at. Then he brought his best glare around making sure each member of his intended seven person audience stayed exactly where they were currently were, his look pinned them there as surly as a pair of arrows could have.

"Luca Blight is a man who makes me look like one of those priests who lives up on top of high mountains and spends his days growing food, combing goats and dispensing mystic wisdom to anyone who will listen. As you should already know I am a heartless mercenary who's blood is so cold if you cut me I wouldn't bleed because it's frozen in my veins.

There are some of you who say that Luca Blight like his father wants peace and for the war to end. Luca Blight desires peace indeed, the biggest piece he can tear out of your nation and masticate it till nothing living is left.

Waste your time arguing about budgets, grudges, and minuscule irritations later! When you quarrel over such matters, you might as well be handing Luca flint and steel, not to mention stacking kindling on the pyre of your homelands.

Granted as the leaders of your people, doubtlessly you could be useful to Luca. You could sell your people to him and do quite well for yourselves.

Those of who seriously contemplate such actions make me sick to my stomach. I kid you not, I do believe my normally iron constitution is failing me..." For a few moments Alexander was silent, but he didn't let it last long enough for anyone to get a word in edgewise.

He began to make sounds again, not words, just sounds. Sounds indicating he was in considerable intestinal distress. He carried the act on for about a minute and it climaxed with him breaking up the beautiful friendship that had been developing between his stomach his breakfast.

An acrid stench filled the air but almost as soon as he had finished with his "theatrics" Alexander was back on the verbal offensive.

"That's better. Now, if there are among you people any who might sell out their own homelands to the likes of Luca Blight, you may assured of one thing. The only people I hate more than a monster like Luca are the rats who would prefer to side with him rather than find the courage to oppose him.

Know in your very bones that I am not a sheepdog who will guide lost lambs back to the flock. I am a wolf, and if you stray from the shepherd Anabelle who has done much to earn your trust, your necks will be broken by my jaws, and your blood will slake my thirst. A pleasant conference to you all especially those of you who I must kill for business reasons at some future date."

With that, Alexander leaped into the air, rotated, adjusted his body, and landed back in the seat he had risen from rocking it only slightly. Then there was complete and total silence for a few moments. It was broken fairly quickly however by a riotous round of applause.

James was standing up and clapping his hands together with every ounce of force he could find. He soon became the center of attention of everyone in the room, his reaction to Alexander's speech easily overshadowing the speech itself.

It didn't take him long (considering it was James) to notice that for some reason he was the only one who was applauding and then slowly came to a stop. Then he blushed (at least Riou thought he did, James' body language was usually pretty easy to read but how do you tell if someone is blushing when their face is covered with red fur) and sat down before exiting the room.

In the sense of after James sat down, he simply faded away like a shadow which has had light shined on it.

Riou wasn't sure when James had "replaced himself" with a Trickster Rune created duplicate (probably some time during Alexander's quite attention drawing speech) but more surprisingly apparently neither was Mirri.

She had buried her face in her right hand and was muttering words in a language that Riou had never heard before. But from the tone behind them they were probably obscene and quite profoundly so.

Then she took a page out of James' book, or something close enough to it, vanishing into thin air as thin whips of shadow. Very slowly the meeting started up again after that.

XXXX XXXX XXXX XXXX

Alexander's speech had apparently been well planned. Even after giving it there seemed to be a lot of needless dickering and questioning of if it was even Highland or mountain bandits who had been behind the attack on the fort. Eventually it ended and the three Highlanders walked out.

"Wow, I can't believe how right you were, that did turn into just a bunch of old men arguing with each other." Nanami gushed.

Alexander nodded but didn't bother to look in her direction.

"Why do you think I went and vomited all over that table? Trust me the food I had for breakfast wasn't nearly that bad. I had to make an impression, so I did. Now if you'll excuse me I have to go eat a second breakfast and after that I do believe that Anabelle probably has a few things to tell me." The mercenary general reflected.

XXXX XXXX XXXX XXXX

Sure enough Anabelle did have words to say to Alexander.

"You know, since you are in my employ, you should consider running it by me before you decided to make a political statement by letting everyone know what you ate for breakfast." Muse's Mayor pointed out pointedly.

Alexander just reclined slightly in his chair, and smiled.

"If I had told you what you what I was going to do then you would have told me not to do it." Alexander responded before flashing her his smuggest smile.

Anabelle managed to keep a straight look on her face for about ten seconds. Then it turned into a broad smile of her own.

"Let me make the nature of our relationship quite clear General Alexander Diamondclaw. If you ever vomit in front of the rulers of Jowston again for any reason then there will be serious consequences! But as it was a first offense, I'll be lenient.

Now then, I take it you know that we've got something of a problem on our hands? Even with the help of your 'unorthodox tactics' as we'll refer to them until a more appropriate phrase comes along, it'll still take around ten days for the aid they intend to send us to arrive.

Highland's army will most likely be here in about a week. So we're going to need your help to slow Highland down." Anabelle informed him.

"You know, the inner masochist in me just loves the way you can toss the these assignments my way like they're nothing at all." Alexander sighed.

"Interesting, to my knowledge handling impossible situations is what the Prophets of Destruction are known for. Also Lord Gorudo has promised that some of his Matilda Knights will be arriving in two days." Anabelle said before being cut off by a snort of derision from Alexander.

"I'll Gorudo's word when his men show up. But most of the mercenaries who survived the battle at the fort have now arrived and with them and the city guard, I should be able to bloody Highland's nose a bit and make them hold off long enough for reinforcements to show up. If that's all there is to it once again I have to get to work." Alexander promised while slowly rising to his feet.

"Understandable. Hopefully I'll get to see you mortify me out of my wits again in the near future because it'll mean we came out of this crisis all right." Anabelle dourly admitted.

XXX XXX XXX XXX

The week came, the week went, the battle came the battle went. True enough Solon Jhee pulled back after about an hour of fighting. It also didn't help that several of his leading units had been a bit more exuberant than was prudent. This had lead to them breaking ranks and running pell mell for Muse.

By the time Alexander and the rest of the Prophets were done with them (they had been given a little help from Riou and Jowy) they had been just about literally eaten up and spit out. The only thing they had managed to accomplish was keeping a group of Matilda Knights from making it to the city after Solon Jhee had his men surround the city.

And so it came to be that Alexander watched the Highland forces form the walls of the city and felt only humor.

How they intended to hold that line when by the morning after tomorrow Jowston's armies should be arriving, and they had only about a weeks worth of rations now he would be interested in finding out.

XXX XXX XXX XXX

A bottle of dwarven firewhisky Mayor Anabelle?" Alexander offered.

Anabelle looked somewhat askance at the bottle that Alexander had brought along with him.

"I suppose I might as well, where exactly did you get it?" She inquired curiously.

Alexander pulled out two glasses to go with the bottle as he sat down on the opposite side of her office's desk.

"I retrieved it from that fort on the border while Cal was busy assuring its destruction. Making sure Luca had nothing to show for his 'victory' put a pile of ruble was important, but a man has to know his priorities in life." Alexander boasted.

Anabelle took another long look at the bottle and then slowly raised her eyes to the man who had brought it.

"Why are you being so chummy all of a sudden?" She pondered warily.

Alexander poured a drink for her and then one for himself.

"I approve of strong women. Especially ones who manage to put up with idiots the way you do, though I would never try to emulate it. I figure I might as well try to make your life a little bit more enjoyable. After all, that's why you hired me isn't it? To make your problems disappear?" The mercenary general half joked.

Anabelle took a drink from her bottle, and for a few moments just starred slack-jawed at nothing, firewhisky tended to have that effect on people.

"I was rather hopping you could make Highland's army vanish rather then the men who annoy me." Muse's Mayor reflected.

Alexander drained his glass in one long swallow and yet seemed to suffer no after effects.

"My apologies, making Highland's soldiers vanish over the horizon would be easier if the Matilda Knights hadn't done the same thing just as the fight was getting good." Alexander growled.

Anabelle took the bottle and refilled her own glass.

"Yes I was somewhat aware of those events. I suppose you must think my kingdom is in a sorry state when mercenaries prove more trustworthy than my own countrymen." Anabelle muttered darkly.

Alexander took another drink before responding.

"I hardly think that at all. I think it says that the money is good and that Lord Gorudo is a pathetic waste of flesh who should be drawn and quartered for putting his own interests ahead of his nation's. But since he's not easily within arms reach, we'll just have to make do as best we can.

Assuming the other mayors do actually make good on their promises that should be 'fairly well' all things considered. If they don't, well then I have a spare horse and plenty of friends in the Toran Republic. You could do quite well for yourself there." He suggested amicably.

Anabelle looked at nothing and everything as if seeing where exactly that decision would lead, and then shaking her head emphatically.

"No thank you. You know how they say the captain goes down with the ship? Well if worse comes to worse I think the mayor will go down with the city." Anabelle admitted slowly.

"It's the advantage of the highborn that quite frequently they can chose the manner of their departure. I on the other hand as a simple mercenary who has a contract taken out by you in particular, but to defend all of Jowston, which means I will have choice but to honor said contract and to continue to fight Prince Luca from Rockaxe to South Window." Alexander declared before draining another bottle of firewhisky.

Anabelle's mind had been clouded slightly by the drink, but not that clouded.

"Your teasing me aren't you?" She accused playfully.

Alexander took yet another long drink before responding.

"I'm simply using humor to make a point about how what may seem like your duty to your city is different from your duty to your country which is different again from your duty to yourself. It's importance to look at such things and understand them, if you don't you turn into someone like his most high eminence, may he be gored alive by a wild boar Gorudo." Alexander then picked up his glass and walked out.

"You can keep the bottle, it'll help you think over what I've said." He advised, bu just as he was about to leave, Anabelle spoke a few words in a tone far more wistful than anything else she had said.

"You know, if things had turned out differently, if I had been born in a different place, and I was a little shorter, I would have made a good girlfriend for you." Anabelle contemplated.

Alexander let low a low chuckle.

"Not in all my years times a million. Being able to tell the difference between making love and making war is one of the things that keeps me sane. I approve of strong women and I approve of a strong drink, but that doesn't mean I'm going to touch pure undulated stuff. Cal made alcohol that was nothing but well that, one time.

All that I can say to recommend it is that it probably would work well as fuel for a firespear. If you are desperate for some personal company though I'd suggest you go find James and Mirri, they both do more than simply approve of strong women."

XXX XXX XXX XXX

About five minutes after Alexander left, Jowy walked into Anabelle's room though she was still in the process of working her way through Alexander's bottle.

"Mayor Anabelle I have a question for you, why do you fight?" Jowy asked, his voice somewhat more strained than normal.

Anabelle looked at him and sighed.

"I was born in Muse, I was raised in Muse, and I have spent much of my life as an adult in Muse. Humans aren't so far removed from animals that way, we have our 'territories' and we fight tooth and claw to protect them. That's all there is to it." Anabelle declared briskly.

"You're more right than you know." Jowy responded, his eyes flickering wide open for a moment then narrowing sharply.

He reached into his pocket and pulled out a combat knife. Anabelle took one look at it and then returned her attention to the bottle.

"So you've come to kill me?" She asked, sounding more bored than anything else.

Jowy's hand quivered slightly but his voice was firm.

"Yes. As long as this stupid war goes on people are going to suffer, you and this city are standing in the way of ending it! That's why I've seen to it that Highland troops will be able to sneak into this city, and I'll be dealing with you personally." He declared triumphantly.

Anabelle simply took another sip from her glass.

"They have an old saying in Jowston, they have it everywhere I'm willing to bet, 'be careful what you wish for, you just might get it' try to remember it after you kill me. Luca Blight is a man who could end the near constant warring between Jowston and Highland, but how happy will you be with the result?" Anabelle inquired her eyes alight with mocking derision.

Jowy took a step towards her.

"This is for the future. Luca Blight can't live forever. This way there will be a world were children never again have their parents taken away from them." Anabelle didn't look away from Jowy, quite the opposite in fact, she locked eyes with him.

"Whatever you say, you've got the knife. But ask yourself how you can be so sure that Luca Blight will die, you've met Alexander, he must have told you what he told me. Luca has a True Rune. Alexander is over a hundred years old and he isn't getting weaker, he's getting stronger all the time, learning new things, new tactics, new moves.

Unless someone takes action the young prince Blight will be the same way. Growing stronger and hungrier all the time, do you have the guts, more importantly do you have the strength to cut him down when he no longer serves your purpose? Because if you don't, it is you who are serving him." Anabelle noted in between refilling her glass.

Jowy clenched the knife so hard that veins became visible on his hand, and out of nowhere a black sword emerged and stuck itself in the table.

"Shut up! I'm going to kill you, and there's nothing you can do to stop it." Jowy said, almost more to himself than to his soon to be killee.

Anabelle broke eye contact with Jowy and went back to her glass.

"Your right. But would you be willing to at least let me finish the bottle, it is very good..." Making what was most likely her final request.

Jowy nodded slowly and took his eyes off the mayor of Muse as she lifted up the bottle.

Mayor Anabelle had a surprisingly good right arm he discovered a moment later as the bottle collided with his head. He dropped to the floor in shock, several glass shards embedding themselves in his skin.

"If you're the best assassin Highland has, I'll live to see a hundred myself. Never take your eyes off the person you are suppose to kill!" Anabelle shouted triumphantly.

Jowy was still vaguely seeing stars, out of his left eye, and nothing at all out of his right. But he could see Mayor Anabelle, or to be more exact, three of her. He let lose with a black sword at each one of them at once, and they all went down. He stood up and shook his head to try and clear it.

Sadly before he got very far the door flew open and Riou, Nanami, and worst of all Pilika came in.

"Jowy what happened?" Riou asked in shock.

Jowy didn't even bother to try and think of a lie, besides hopefully it wouldn't matter soon. He took off like a shot, and threw his already scratched up body through the glass window at the other side of the room.

He managed to land without doing any real further damage to his body at which point he started running off into the night.

XXX XXX XXX XXX XXX

Only a couple of seconds after Jowy left, Jess ran into the room, just in time to see the black sword that had skewered Mayor Anabelle fading away.

"What... what... what happened?" He eventually managed to gasp out.

Riou wished that he knew the answer. But before he had to try and come up with one that would do, alarm bells started ringing all over the building, and in fact the city.

XXX XXX XXX XXX

"You know what the worst thing about being in an invaded city is?" Alexander asked in irritation.

"No but I'm sure you'll tell me." Florence sagely reflected.

"People have no appreciation for a man's private time." Alexander answered before rolling out of the bed he and Florence had been quite busily sharing a few moments earlier.

The hammering at the door of the pair's room increased though Alexander always the military man had taken precautions to lock their doors rooms before giving certain personal matter all of his attention.

At least 99% of his attention, or some percentage to that degree, as he was able to notice the loud banging on the door. Considering his own men knew better than to knock on a locked door, and the fact that he had also given the inns staff instructions to that nature as well it could only mean that the city was no longer under siege, it was now being ransacked.

Alexander reached over and grabbed his pants before quickly yanking them on. He snatched his belt with one hand and his white undershirt with the other next. He pulled his shirt on with his right hand while his left arranged his belt as best it could, before giving it a tightening jerk with his right. Finally with a resounding thwack the doorway came apart and three soldiers came in, two with swords drawn, one a crossbow.

The one with the crossbow fired it, but Alexander rolled underneath the bed and temporarily out of its line of fire. A few moments later he rolled out the other side and leaped to his feet just in time to see the other two soldiers rushing him.

Remembering some stories he'd heard about a certain sport in Zexen, Alexander swung his large jacket out in the two mens' faces, which indeed caused them to stab it instead of him..

Alexander yanked it back wrapping it around his shoulders and watching the two run by as he managed to get his hands to go through the sleeves. Soldiers turned around, but they were no longer being toyed with. Alexander easily dodged both of their swings, and nailed one of them with a powerful uppercut.

The man was wearing a helmet with a jaw plate, but all that meant was that after Alexander had hit the man's neck so hard it almost snapped his head clean off his shoulders, the mercenary's right hand was out of commission for a while. Which didn't prevent him from kneeing the other soldier in the chest which made him fall flat on his back gasping for breath.

This gave the taller man all the opportunity he needed to plant a currently bare foot on the soldiers neck and press down till he heard a satisfactory "snap".

"Florence, do you know why my boots are?" Alexander inquired in a surpringly calm tone of voice.

A small crossbow bolt flew past Alexander, and the third soldier who had been frantically reloading his weapon dropped it with a cry of pain as his right hand was pierced by Florence's miniature crossbow bolts. A few seconds later his left suffered a similar fate.

"I'm a little busy at the moment honey." Alexander's partner replied.

Florence had covered herself with the bedsheet and rather than looking for her clothing had quickly reattached her two weapons of choice. The slight disparity that had existed between the firing of the two crossbow bolts was caused by the fact that Florence had needed to alternate between clutching the bedsheet and jerking her weapons triger.

Alexander sighed and simply walked over to the still frightened solider, and used his greater height to deliver a spinning kick to the unprotected side of the soldier's head sending him firmly to the floor.

That task over and done with Alexander got to work buttoning his outfit, as he made his way around the bed to see if his boots had landed on the other side of it. As he was doing so his keen sense of hearing heard a fourth soldier coming up behind him.

But Alexander was significantly faster on his feet than his latest assailant had expected, this combined with an elbow to the face ended the soldiers life without Alexander ever seeing the face of the man who he had just killed.

Sure enough shifting aside some fallen bedsheets Alexander found his pair of black boots. He got one, just in time to see two more soldiers come in.

"Hold this would you?" Alexander pleaded, tossing his other boot in Florence's general direction and walked towards the soldiers with a decidedly uneven gate. Of course anything comical about the situation vanished when the one of soldiers who was suddenly slightly distracted took a kick from Alexander's now protected foot.

It caved his armor and ribs in like dwarfs did a mine shaft.

Then since his final opponent still wasn't quite aware of his fast approaching demise Alexander went back to work buttoning his coat as he delivered one of Suikoden's most powerful crotch kicks.

It seemed only fitting considering the nature of the business he had been taking care of before being distracted, and while given time the soldier could have perfectly recovered from the "wound" his time was all spent as soon as Alexander's booted foot pressed the soldier's own helmet not so much onto but into his head.

"I do believe that they've singled out this inn in particular as a target." Alexander admitted finally finishing the process of getting dressed. The reason for his last two foes distraction was now literally right before his eyes when he had tossed his boot to Florence, she had caught it with both of her hands resulting the sheets falling down to rest around her stomach.

Alexander himself having lead many a campaign across the territory laid bare before the two now deceased Highland soldiers, gave it only a customary once over rather than the intense scrutiny that which had insured the deaths of the pair of men who had recently found themselves rather fixated by the sight before him.

Thus he managed to catch his boot when Florence threw it to him only slightly harder than she normally would have.

"So was it fun for you, mixing your two favorite things?" She asked while tentatively raising an eyebrow.

Alexander inserted his other foot into the boot, and made his way over to the fallen bedsheets on his side of the bed and sorted among them for a few moments till he found Masamune resting in its sheath. He took the time to hang the strap over his right shoulder before answering.

"It was different. But if it is all the same I must say that I feel I could hardly enjoy anything that forced me to direct my attentions away from you during a time when I should have no purpose but to give you my utmost.

Sadly given the nature of the interruption I predict a great many more of them will be coming long soon so though I am hardly lacking in reserves, we had better depart this place for it would seem we have a traitor in our midst. There's no other explanation for how Highland could have men inside the city." He deduced.

A minute later he stepped out into the inns hallway with Florence (fully dressed and armed) at his side, all traces of frivolity having vanished from his face.

XXXX XXXX XXXX XXX

No sooner had Riou, Nanami and Pilika walked out of the Mayor's residence than James and Mirri descended on them at once.

"This is your non present friends fault isn't it?" Mirri asked pointedly.

Riou would have found the causation downright insulting if it wasn't for the fact the vampire was right.

"Yeah, or if Jowy hadn't just killed Mayor Anabelle he certainty acted in an odd way." Riou admitted awkwardly.

Even James didn't seem to have anything humorous to say about the situation. Instead he just simply scooped Pilika up in his harms.

"Hold on to me again. We don't have any time to waste and we're not going to get out by the front gate of the city with Highland soldiers streaming through it. So we're going to have to jump the walls." James warned them.

Riou couldn't help but notice that blood was dripping from Mirri's chin and looking very closely (having a True Rune helped) let him see a thin trickle of blood work is way down James' neck.

So apparently both of them already had gone through a few fights with said soldiers.

Mirri helped Nanami up to wrap her arms around the vampire's throat. Then James and Mirri went from standing right in front of Riou to being considerably higher above him standing on the city's walls.

"Come on up Riou!" James called down.

"Yeah kid, impress me!" Mirri added none too tactfully.

Riou looked at the very tall walls around the city.

/Okay, can I honestly do this?\ He wanted to know the Bright Shield Rune's opinion on taking a jump like this.

/On your own it is doubtful. Together, we can.\ It reassured him.

Riou still doubted that he could make the transition in a single bound just bending his knees and jumping however, so instead he took several steps back, got a running start, and then jumped. He flew through the air and headed for the wall.

He made it all right, more or less smacked right into the wall.

He saw stars for a few moments and waited for the second impact of him hitting the ground. It didn't come, and he managed to shake his head around enough to see why it hadn't.

He might not have made it to the top of the wall, but he had made it high enough that James and Mirri had been able to reach down and grab hold of his arms when he had impacted against the wall.

Each of them holding onto one of his hands they both gave one good heave and hoisted onto the wall. Now that his thinking was no longer obstructed by the adrenaline of having to get to his current location, or the blunt trauma he had endured getting there, a thought occurred to him.

"Couldn't one you two just jumped down and picked me up the way that you did with my sister rather than needing to make me bang my head against that stone wall?" Riou realized.

He got the response he was expecting even if not quite the form he expected it.

"Hey James, have you ever heard of someone banging their head before and getting all the slow knocked out of them because of it?" Mirri asked with faux innocence filling her voice.

Yep, once again Riou was getting manipulated by the two mercenaries, and Mirri hadn't even needed to take any of his blood.

"So now what?" Riou asked, wondering if they were about to taunt him into committing some even more foolish deeds.

For an answer, James and Mirri took off racing south along the cities walls. Riou drew in a deep breath and then took off following them. It was going to be another long night.

XXXX XXXX XXXX XXXX

Jowy wasn't so much staggering along as walking along but he certainty felt that way.

He had done it, and now that he was finally free to think about what had turned into a life or death decision all too fast, all the indecision he had over it was hitting him with the force of a blacksmiths hammer to the skull, several times over.

Of course since there was absolutely nothing he could do to change what had happened, he didn't enjoy this experience one bit. He should have known that Riou might ask someone where he had gone, he should have done something to make sure the three of them hadn't come looking for him.

Then as if he needed anything else to go wrong, a bolt of lightening set a nearby tree on fire.

Jowy began to take his limping walk in the other direction in case the fire from the tree spread to the grass below.

"You really don't catch on all that fast do you kid?" A menacing female voice asked just before a metal chain wrapped around Jowy's legs and he fell face first into the dirt.

Then whoever was holding the chain gave it a good yank, pulling Jowy in their direction. Which was how he found himself looking down the barrel of a gun. A quick look slightly above the gun told him it was being held by the only person he knew who used such a weapon.

"You know, you really should have just opened the gate and gotten away as fast as you could rather than trying to press your luck and see if you could get away with killing the mayor." Cal suggested in a far from kind tone of voice.

A small black glow surrounded Jowy's right hand, at least until Devi kicked him in the head, and then the only black glow was the one in his eyes were suddenly seeing everywhere.

"Don't. You tried to kill a regular human who you had caught completely by surprise, and you just barley got away with it. That means the only kind luck you've got tonight is bad." The elf warned him.

Cal for his part stopped playing around and actively pressed the cold barrel of his gun to Jowy's warm forehead.

"So I suppose you two are the hawks Alexander sent flying to bring poor little rabbit me back to him squeaking, his back marked with wounds, just so that he can personally slit my throat?" Jowy wondered darkly.

Cal laughed quite a bit at that analogy but at the same time he pressed down on his gun, forcing Jowy to go from sitting up to lying down.

"Kid, let me explain something to you. Alexander, he isn't real big on summary executions. If he felt you knew something he wanted to know, then he would have turned you over to Mirri, she'd bite your neck, and then you'd tell us every single thing you know right down to every single time you wet the bed.

But in your case, since you have nothing he wants, you'd have just be dead. No bolt of lightening, I would have just shot you, and then we'd have cut off your right and taken the True Rune back to him." Cal's voice left no doubt that he wouldn't have felt any sort of guilt over killing someone as young as Jowy.

"So why am I still alive?" Jowy couldn't help but ask.

Devi unwound her flail from Jowy's legs with impressive ease and then delivered a quick slap to the side of his face with the flail.

"We're asking the questions if you don't mind. Now we know you opened the gate and killed mayor Anabelle. What we care about is if you did it from stupid national loyalty, or you actually are working with the Highland Army?" Devi asked him.

"I was working with the army after I tried to sneak in and got caught." Jowy gasped out.

Evidently it was the right answer because Cal pulled back the gun a couple of inches.

"Good for you, because if you were just doing it for no reason, I'd have blown you away hear and now. You see we're mercenaries, we only get the really big payoff, the victory bonus, if the side we're working for wins the war. After watching the Jowston Council, it's blindly obvious that Highland is going to win the war.

Jowston is run by nothing but a bunch of old men who could sleep through their own executions. You take us to Luca Blight, we get a new contract, he gets our services, you stay alive, everyone is happy, understood?" Cal demanded.

Jowy would have found it quite hard not to.


	10. Chapter 10

Ronin Trip

Book Two: Wild dogs and hunting wolves

Chapter Ten: How bad can I be? I'm just doing what comes naturally!

Prince Luca Blight looked at Cal and Devi who unlike Jowy were still impeccably dressed; Cal in his brown coat and pants, Devi in her in what might have once been a blue dress but cut in half so she could wear blue pants as well to go with it to keep her movement unrestricted.

"Mercenaries... do you have any idea how much I hate mercenaries?" Prince Luca Blight asked, not so much seeming directly angry at anyone or anything but more simmering with rage at the world in general.

"Considering what people said you did to any of the people who were serving alongside us at the border fought who you got your hands on I have something of a notion." Cal answered calmly, every inch his usual unflappable self.

Unlike Luca, Cal had elected to sit and a secured a place for himself through the process of standing in front of Rowd holding Phoenix so that it dangled back in Rowd's face until it so unnerved the Highland Commander that he decided to move somewhere else.

"So, why do you dare to come into my presence?" Luca demanded his fingers twitching toward his sword as if the wrong answer would part Cal from his head.

"It's quite simple really. Devi and myself are worth far more to you alive than dead. The fact that we managed to bring your errand boy back to you in one piece should be proof enough of that. But if you need further details of just how we can help you, I'll lay all our cards on the table.

I was Alexander's alchemist. If it involved chemicals, or most devices he went to me. You see I was trained by the Howling Voice Guild in Harmonia, though I'd appreciate it if you kept that under your helmet. I... I Callan Wright am the only soul on the face of Suikoden who knows what the Guild knows, and am willing and able to work outside the Guild." Cal declared dramatically.

Luca Blight however was still noticeably unimpressed.

"Wars are not won by sages, but by soldiers. What use can I glean from you and your weapon?" The Prince of Highland inquired.

"You want an assassin, I'm your man. I don't stick around and talk wasting time and opening myself up for attack unlike the kid. I can hit a golden coin at 400 yards." Cal responded quickly.

"And you?" Luca turned his attention from Cal to Devi, his interest in the gunman momentarily slaked.

"I have a way with numbers. If you think that's a small thing talk to your quartermasters, who has what and how much you have of it. Also like my partner, I am quite impressive in combat, try me if your willing to risk having trouble walking around all day. I also happen to be the one who draws up our contracts. I'll be more than willing to have a fair one ready for you to sign by the end of the day if you wish." Devi explained.

"That is if I chose to hire you. Something I don't intend to do unless I have some measure of your loyalty?" Luca reminded them his eyes once more flickering back to his blade's hilt.

"You trusted the kid here would follow your orders rather than continuing to run away with his friends. We on the other hand are Prophets of Destruction, we never violate our contracts." Cal followed up his comments with a snicker which was far louder then most people still attached to their heads ever would in Prince Luca Blight's presence.

"Bah! Supposedly you were in in the employ of the Muse a few days ago. More to the point, I understand the late Emperor Barbarossa had use of your services and they did him precious little good.

As the story currently goes, General Alexander made him stand out on the balcony of his place with both feet on the contract. Then tore the contract in half and Barbarossa and half of the contract ended up going over the balcony railing." Luca Blight wasn't biting apparently.

The two Prophets had a long chuckle at this and Devi managed to recover first.

"Few things could be farther from the truth. For the first point, we did not have a contract with the Muse, we had one with Mayor Anabelle. I happen to have said contract on me and would be more than glad to show it to you. With the death of Mayor Anabelle, which we took no part in, that contract follows down subsection E5 in case of the termination of the holder of the contract, which leads to contract being rendered null and void.

Alexander and some of the others might choose to continue to serve Jowston out of some misguided sense of loyalty but the simple fact of the mater is that there is no binding reason why he, or more importantly why we should have to do so.

As for Emperor Barbarossa, he clearly violated his duties as holder of said contract in so much as it said 'the armed soldiers of the holder of said contract shall recognize the Prophets of Destruction as brothers in arms' and we were attacked by them first."

Devi saw that her speech had the effect she wanted it to, just about everyone who was standing suddenly looked like they wanted to sit down and rub their heads to make the dull throbbing sensation in it go away.

"I would be interested in seeing this contract." To his credit Luca Blight did manage to carve straight to the point at least.

"Go right ahead." Devi said the words in the tone that a empress would when she and her million man army with a years supply of food and water would use when addressing a barbarian chief who intended to attack her castle.

She reached into her jacket and pulled forth several pieces of paper filled with flowering script. A small metal ring had been driven through the upper left hand corner of the page so that they would remain in order. She tossed it to her perspective employer without an ounce of hesitation.

Luca Blight was a man who laughed while he disemboweled old men and children. but as his eyes beheld the flowing script, he discovered that there were things that made even his stomach churn.

He was also however a man who would let nothing stop him from getting what he wanted, even his own body. He skimmed the pages, and found the section that Devi had quoted though which he read from start to finish several times over before skimming the rest of the contract.

"Indeed it is most comprehensive. I take it if I were to take our a contract with you, it would be of similar length." As he said the words Luca returned his attention to his sword's hilt, it was starting to feel like a more appetizing option with each passing moment.

Devi crossed her legs, unlike Cal no one ever expected a lady to stand, sometimes being under appreciated had its advantages.

"Most assuredly. Business is a great deal like warfare, you have to make sure that you cover all of the possible angles or you leave yourself open to unsatisfactory results. Of course Prince Luca you are obviously a busy man with a war to conduct. Thus there is no reason that you in person must oversee the writing of the contract. You can delegate it to a worthy and loyal servant who will make sure that everything is in place and then you can sign it." Devi offered, in a voice that contained just a touch of malice.

Luca's face suddenly brightened slightly, nothing makes you feel better than finding out you don't have to fight the battle that you didn't want to.

"Oh excellent. In that case Rowd, you can handle negotiating the contract and its exact nature. But before, I even think of hiring you, I must ask, do you know why I call my personal forces the White Wolf Army?" Luca inquired his eyes suddenly once more alight with devilish purpose.

"Because the closest thing in the animal kingdom is a wolf pack. A group of like minded animals working together in order to bring down foes that none of them could be able to handle on their own." After having spent many years working for Alexander Cal could rattle of that answer with his eyes closed.

His eyes flew wide open in shock however as Luca responded by slamming his gauntleted fists down hard enough on the table to send splinters flying in all directions. Luca wasn't biting.

"NO!" The Prince of Highland insisted in anger.

"There are wolves in the world. That is what my mother taught me. 'Be careful Luca, there are wolves in the world.' She was right, there are wolves out there, wolves cloaked in human flesh that will tear apart all one holds dear. But those days are over, I am armored against their fangs now! Now I drive the wolves before me and force them to serve my will! It doesn't matter what form they come in, no wolf will hurt me ever again not even, especially not that Kiken Ookami!" As he spoke the rage behind Luca's words seem to build and build until one could almost sense heat radiating from his body like a boiling kettle.

That moment went even more quickly than it had come however as his eyes focused tightly upon Cal and Devi once more.

"I will give you two a chance to serve me, and if you succeed you will be rewarded. If you fail, well as mercenaries I assume you already know." Luca finally declared.

Cal vacated his seat and gave Luca a quick salute. "We do and we don't your highness. There's quite a bit of conventional wisdom on the issue, but you see, we've never failed." He responded wryly.

XXXX XXXX XXXX

"You kids stay here, we'll go find a boat." Mirri promised their younger followers..

She and James had guided Riou, Nanami and Pilka to the small town that was directly across a large body of water from a days walking distance of South Window. The three were left alone at a table, but the looks that the two mercenaries had given the room before walking out insured that they would not be hassled.

Which left Riou and sister plenty of time to talk about what was worrying both of them.

"Riou, do you have any ideas why Jowy did what he did?" Nanami whispered in a strained voice.

Riou shook his head, he hadn't noticed his friend acting differently between when he'd come back and when he had killed Mayor Annabelle.

"I don't have a clue Nanami. I can't believe that Jowy would do something like that." Riou admitted with a sad shake of his head.

"Maybe it wasn't Jowy?" Nanami pipped up sympathetically.

Riou looked at Nanami and showed what he though of that theory by drawing in a very deep breath and then letting it go slowly.

"How could it not have been Jowy?" He asked bitterly.

"Well I mean James and Mirri were able to fool you both into thinking they were someone else. Maybe that was somebody else who fooled us into thinking he was Jowy." Nanami rambled on halfheartedly.

Riou was too old to believe in fantasies however pleasing when the truth was right in front of his eyes.

"We both saw what happened to Mayor Anabelle, she was killed by a black sword. By the Black Sword Rune, and I've never heard of anything that could do what it did, not even close.

I know Jowy too well for anyone for that to have been anyone else. But, apparently, I didn't know him well enough to realize what he was going to do, or even why he did it." Riou reflected before laying his head against the table and bringing the conversation to a close.

XXXX XXXX XXX

As it turned out Highland had managed to conquer this small fishing town before they even bothered to attack Muse. Fortunately the Prophets of Destruction as mercenaries had never felt any particular pressure to adopt the colors of the nations they served, or even have their clothing say they were soldiers.

In short, so long as James and Mirri kept their heads down, and didn't bother Highland's soldiers, they wouldn't be bothered in returned. At least they wouldn't be bothered directly. After being turned down half a dozen times by the same irritating drivel of "Luca Blight and the Highland army said that not a single ship is to leave the docks" even James was feeling rather bothered.

Most of the time when dealing with people who were considerably less than pleased with the laws they had to obey, all you had to stuff a couple bills into the right pockets or hands, and you got what you wanted. But since there were Highland soldiers standing around the docks, no one wanted to take the risk of directly thumbing their noses at their conquerors.

So James and Mirri had expanded their search. Which had laid them to a small shack a bit off from the docks.

"Well if it isn't our two favorite layabouts Yam Koo and Tai Ho." Mirri noted, sarcasm dripping from every word.

True enough the two men who the Prophets had not seen for three years. They didn't look that much worse for wear, but then sitting around smoking, gambling and occasionally when money became an issue fishing or using their boat for other illicit purposes was not exactly a trying life. Tai Ho the leader of the pair looked at Mirri as she sat down.

"So you want to gamble?" He asked in a chummy tone.

Mirri held out her right hand and James quickly filled it with a wad of bills.

"That's exactly right. But I'm not particularly interested in playing Chinchirorin though. Instead I'm graciously going to teach you a new game called 'break' and it works like this." As she spoke Mirri scooped the three dice out of the bowl with her left, and tossed them up into the air, catching them with her right just as they started to fall.

"I'm going to take these dice, and I am going to clench my fist hard enough to break them. Then I am going to slam my fist on this table hard enough to break it. Now if when the dust clears I find that with the dice having been broken into tiny little pieces, were weighted, I win.

In which case I will proceed to pick you up by the scruff of your necks and bash your heads together, and maybe you'll go unconscious or maybe they end up breaking like the dice. After which me and James will sail off in your boat. If these dice are legit, then I'll have James shake your robe till the second set of dice you have on you comes out, and I'll check those also.

If those are crooked then as I said, we knock you out and, steal your boat. If those dice truly leave the numbers they show up to luck, then I'll give you this bundle of bills to pay for six new, dice a table, and your time, at which point we'll walk out because we have no interest in playing dice games while Highland's armies march across Jowston.

Or you can realize that we're much luckier than you are, take this bundle of bills as payment, and help us get to South Window. So, do you accept my generous offer or do you want to gamble?" Mirri asked with a playful titled eyebrow.

When she got no answer, Mirri tightened her fist, the blue veins pumping other people's blood (mainly James') standing out strikingly against her pale skin.

"I'm haven't even cracked them yet, I'm just warming up. Care to reconsider before things start getting broken?" Scarcely were the words out of her mouth when the reply came.

"We'd be glad to except payment from someone as luck as you!" Tai Ho gushed.

Mirri smiled as friendly as you could please, flipped her wrist around and dropped the dice. They bounced across the table for a few moments and then came to a rest, displaying four, five, and six.

"My, I wonder what the odds of that were?" She noted with a whimsy that even James wouldn't have called genuine.

XXX XXX XXX XXX

The boat ride south went by quickly only up taking most of the day. This was probably because of two things: the first was that the wind was with them, and the second was that James and Mirri pitched in rowing tirelessly away with the only pair of oars on board the vessel

Since they didn't seem significantly tired by the time the boat pulled into dock on the other side of the lake Riou felt that now that there wasn't nearly as much wind to disrupt his words, he might as well ask the question that had been bothering him since their nautical journey began.

"What are we doing?" He asked tentatively.

"We're going to find someplace to sleep, then we're heading to South Window." James answered with his usual glibness.

Since the two mercenaries seemed to fluctuate in who responded like something out of a mythical tale, Riou hopped when he clarified his point, Mirri would respond.

"No I mean what have we been doing ever since we left Muse? Why are we going to South Window? Since you insist on dragging us along we deserve to know." He demanded.

Sure enough the more creature's more malevolent and intelligent head answered.

"We're following a plan that Alexander drew up a while ago in case the Muse fell. He figured that we could do the most good by splitting up and visiting various different cities separately.

Alexander and Florence are headed to Greenhill and Cal while Devi should be trying to squeeze every ounce of effort they can out of the Matilda Knights. While they deal with those two we're going to visit South Window and talk to Mayor Granmeyer. We follow Alexander's plan, there isn't anything more to it." Mirri answered emphatically.

There was a disadvantage to this kind of thinking and Nanami noticed it at once.

What exactly happens, when events outplace Alexander's plan and he isn't with us to come up with a new one?" She wanted to know.

"Then things get interesting." James promised her.

XXX XXXX XXX XXX

Captain Seed Affleck of the Highland army looked at dark stain on the ground got down on his knees to inspect it a little closer and then stood back up.

"That snot nose bastard!" He cried out in rage.

Captain Culgan was more interested in the Late Mayor's stockpile of books across the hall than her personal place of business, but his partner had dragged insisted he take a look at Seed's newest discover.

"What is it exactly?" Culgan inquired with a shrug.

The fury within the red haired captain did not diminish but grew instead.

Do you know made this stain Culgan? Dwarven firewhiskey! There was a bottle of dwarven firewhiskey somewhere in this city, right in the mayor's clutches, and that kid let her drink it!" Seed wailed in anger.

Something about the fact that since Luca had decided not to set foot inside Muse as of yet leaving Seed and Culgan were in charge of the city had gone to one of their heads apparently.

From the glass shards I'm also going to guess that she hit him upside the head with the bottle." Culgan noted which just made Seed clench his hands into rage filled fists.

"Oh yes! Believe me I'm mad as hell about that as well! But at the moment I'm more focused on the root of the problem. If that traitorous kid hadn't stood around letting her drink what could have otherwise been my bottle of Dwarven firewhisky by virtue of Highland's superior might, then he wouldn't have gotten hit with it!

Which of course brings me to a moral quandary Culgan. Our less than competent assassin dissevers to be punished for his colossal display of ineptitude, and at first glance punishment in the form of a bottle to the offender's cranium would seem reasonable. Yet, in the application of the punishment the remainder of the bottle, stains the rug mixing with blood and glass shards.

Thus, the punishment itself reduces the remainder of the bottle's contents to nil from the standpoint of what value offers in regards to human consumption. For a punishment to be true justice it should be fitted to the crime in such a way that the sentence strictly corrects the crime making sure it does not happen again.

For example, when a man steals with his hands, if his hands are cut off he will have significant difficulty stealing with them again. Now how is it a bottle to the head a suitable punishment for denying me dwarven firewhisky, when this punishment encourages the action by denying me more dwarven firewhisky?" Seed contemplated.

Culgan was one of the few people who could have listened to that with a steady expression.

Seed had done the best he could, in fact for a man who was born of ignoble parents he had done incredibly well for himself. However he had yet to catch onto the finer points of tact. Culgan had tried to tutor his partner in warfare on the subject of how a gentleman should act, but Seed only seemed to apply those lessons when he genuinely cared about the subject at hand.

But in those rare cases when he cared to actually apply himself, he did it to an extent that would have made lesser pendants slip on puddles of their own drool. Culgan would doubtlessly not have spent anywhere close to the same amount of time debating the moral ramification of a man setting a library on fire, catching fire himself, and running into a second library to set it on fire as well before succumbing to the flames.

Are you quite done defiling the office of Mayor Anabelle before her body has even been properly buried?" Seed looked up from the puddle of liquid, the loss of which he apparently considered more valuable than several gallons of human blood and faced the man who addressed him.

He was one of the countless bureaucrats that Highland had captured along with the city. In Culgan's mind they were the equivalent of plague ridden peasants who happened to be standing around when you captured a village, except that he would feel rather bad about forcibly removing plague ridden villagers from their homes.

Kicking worthless paper shufflers out into the real world would be something both he and Seed could relish. Which why he didn't object nearly as much to the response that the man got.

No we're not done defiling her office yet. In fact I'm thinking of bringing a couple big strong guys in here, and first thing we do is knock down the walls. After that we can set up a bar and and maybe knock some holes in the floor to make a place to store the casks. Then we bring in some ladies of negotiable affection, and partition the library across the hall into several smaller rooms if you know what I'm talking about.

Then we can get some dancing girls in here, who possibly are also suppliers of reasonably priced love, and then, then we might be done defiling her office. Now run along unless you want to be standing around in just your yellow pants handing out drinks and remember, nobody likes a sore loser, least of all a sore winner." Seed shot back with blinding speed.

The man vacated the office even faster.

You weren't serious about that were you?" Culgan inquired, unsure of exactly how far his partner might be willing to let his temporary position of authority run away with him.  
"Why not? Every great bar has to have some impressive story about it, preferably worked into the name. We could call it 'the final drop' or 'the spillage of victory' maybe 'the mayor's last call'. I mean if I remember correctly it wasn't like the the former occupier of the premises was so ugly she wouldn't have been worth doing even if it was on the house.

Of course you are right, that guy handing out drinks would never do, might attract the wrong kind of clientele." Seed noted in between further inspections of his prized puddle.

Culgan hopped the occupation of Muse (or to be more exact his duties concerning it) proved to be a short one.

End Chapter.


	11. Chapter 11

Ronin Trip

FN: Before I start this chapter I would just like to say I'm sorry for how long it took this chapter to get properly edited and posted. I spent three weeks out of town away from my machine, and had a horrible case of "blank page syndrome" when it came to actually start editing this thing.

But now its done and I hope you all enjoy it!

Book two: Wild dogs and hunting wolves

Chapter eleven: This is the test of flesh and soul, this is the trap that smelled so good!

"So what are we suppose to do here in North Window exactly?" Riou asked while dismounting the horse that he had been provided with after leaving South Window.

He was unlikely to become a champion rider any time soon, but he wasn't feeling nearly as saddle sore as he had been last time. Granted the Bright Shield Rune might have had something to do with that.

/Might?\ Riou tried not to think how for an immortal (and if not omnipotent only a few steps below it) being, his rune could be incredibly touchy over pathetically small issues at times.

He must have succeeded because his thought process remained uninterrupted this time around.

"We're jumping through the proverbial hoop that the mayor set up so that we can prove that we're mercenaries he really wants on his side. Luckily, some what he wants done matches up perfectly with our talents. North Window has apparently had some problems with vampires so we're going to deal with it." Mirri stated bluntly.

It was probably the lack of emotion in Mirri's voice which most drew Nanami's attention.

"So do you two do this often?" She inquired hesitantly.

"More or less, me and Mirri have taken down our fair share of vampires, certainly more than any human vampire ever did." James' answer marked one more time that the pair had managed to surprise him.

So much so in fact that he couldn't help but blurt out the first thing that came to mind.

"Wait, wait, wait! You two work together to kill vampires, even though..." Riou spluttered.

Mirri spun round on her heel and began to loom ominously could even finish the sentence.

"Typical vitalistic arrogance. You're human correct? Yet you signed up to, trained to , and now have, kill human beings. Never, ever, assume that a differences in the small things like lifespan mean there's are differences in the big ones. It doesn't matter if it is humans, elves, dwarfs, inus, nays, or vampires you if you look hard enough you'll see the exact same thing.

Thinking beings desire the company of other thinking beings. This leads to the foundation of a society. A society will in turn come up with rules as it decides certain acts are to be forbidden. Then in turn, it becomes necessary to create punishment for those who commit these acts, since sooner or later a society finds itself in possession of members who are ill-equipped to fit into it, or just don't want to.

Next you have the creation of people who apply these punishments as representatives of their society, rather than individuals acting on their own whim's. From there, you reach the final progression, people who leave their society to inflict its punishments on those who have committed unforgivable acts and then fled the normal reach of said society.

Among human beings armies often serve this function when they aren't actively making war but instead are hunting down bandits. Among vampires, it takes the form of me and James.

You see, in the society I came from, drinking blood from an unwilling partner is equivalent of rape in yours, and contrary to what you have doubtlessly been told, nothing makes you value life like not having it yourself." Mirri made good use of her non functioning lungs by refusing to pause for breath at any point in her speech.

Riou just tried to stay as still as possible wondering if he could wait out her penetrating stare.

However since he wasn't getting any younger (he would believe in the immortality True Runes granted when he experienced it himself), and she wasn't getting any older, a stalemate was not in his favor.

"Oh, okay, sorry I just thought that..." He began before being promptly cut off.

"That vampires were all cackling monsters who were waging a war against humanity as one society against another, rather than the deaths of humans being the acts of stray unreasonable aberrations?

You know I just love the way that you call Luca Blight a madman as an explanation of his crimes, but when it comes to blood drained corpses 'vampire' is all that needs to be said on the issue. It never, not once, occurs to you that it's a mad-vampire, who did the drinking. Your eyes should fill with dread when you meet someone with eyes of red..." Mirri issued that last line in a mocking version of a child's sing song voice.

"Runes I fucking hate that poem. You know that's exactly how people like Luca Blight come about after all. Someone develops a preconceived notion about a group of people based off of a singular event, and then refuses to let go of that notion even when events to the contrary take place right before their eyes.

You set a thief to catch a thief, there's no better cure for a vampire than another vampire, which is something the mayor wisely realized. That's why he handed the task over to us rather than sending in squads of his men to get killed and turned into undead servants of the vampire giving him even more toys to play with.

That why when we find this vampire all you should do is stand very far back. Doing nothing should come easily to you, and that way we'll make sure the vampire's death is a punishment administered by his own society and not specisim motivated slaughter." Mirri instructed them.

It was quiet as a graveyard between the four (Mayor Granmeyer had one of his close subordinates looking after Pilika back in South Window) till Nanami tried to lift the tension.

"So, how exactly are you going to kill the vampire, wooden stake, shove garlic down his throat, silver blade..." She began to recount various methods of vampire slaying from legend before being promptly cut off.

"If luck is on our side, then it'll just be some blood born vampire, and we'll kill him with sunlight. Granted luck hasn't been much help recently so the vampire will probably be runic. Which means none of the things you listed above will do a lick of good.

I'll kill him by tearing his arms and any other limbs that get in the way off, and then biting him in the neck and draining him dry as a bone. This a rare example of those times when poetic justice and the real thing happen to overlap perfectly.

Of course if we're really unlucky and fate is screwing with us, then we're going to find that the vampire behind it all..." Now it was suddenly Mirri's turn to be cut off.

"Is me." The newly arrived man man wasn't as tall as Alexander, but he was still still taller than Mirri.

He had on a black coat with a white shirt on underneath it. A nasty gash ran along his forehead which made quite visible by the fact that his black hair was cut short, and right below it was his red eyes.

Mirri and James both instantly assumed combat stances at the sight of the man, and Mirri's let loose with the most hate-filled growl that Riou had ever heard.

"Neclord, I guess it's true what they say, if you cut a snake in pieces you have to be careful that they don't connect back together as they wriggle in their death throes." Her fangs becoming far more noticeable as she spoke.

Neclord (assuming that was this new vampire's name) bowed mockingly.

"Ahh Mirri, you acidic tongue is so very enjoyable in small quantities and so very boring in extreme doses. Tell me how is Sierra doing?" Neclord chortled in response.

All of a sudden a great many things happened all of a sudden. Most of it was faster than even Riou could properly comprehend, but when it abated both Neclord and Mirri's clothing had several noticeable cuts in them. As the clothing belonged to vampires however these tears mended mended themselves in no time flat.

"You bastard, don't you ever dare mention her name again! You aren't half, aren't a quarter the vampire she was! Her fangs are longer than yours, her eyes are redder than yours, her skin is paler than yours, and believe me I don't even have to try to know that her post suck is better than yours!" Mirri declared angrily.

Riou wondered if he had heard that last one right, and decided no to contemplate it for too long. Something about the shambling mass of rotting skin barely clinging to a human skeleton rising out of the ground helped him with that.

Before it could get far out of the ground however Riou bashed its brains out with his tonfas, likewise Nanami handled a second one with a few quick blows of her staff.

James dispatched another two with a dagger each while Mirri and Neclord stayed in unmoving opposition to each other.

Then the mirrored gazes shattered and Mirri turned away.

"Come on James, kids, lets get out of here, there's no way we can beat him." Mirri sighed heavily.

It was the first time that Riou had ever seen a Prophet of Destruction walk away from a fight.

Not run away as they had from the superior numbers that Highland had brought to bear at the fort and in Muse, but a leisurely sedate walk away from Neclord who in turn made no attempts to chase after them.

It kept Riou spellbound and speechless for well over a minute.

"Okay, what just happened?" He finally managed to ask after clearing away his confusion.

"There are few greater pieces of wisdom than knowing what your limits are, which can be surpassed by greater effort, and which can't be.

Trying to beat Neclord by fighting harder is the equivalent of trying to fly by flapping our arms like wings and jumping. I'm a vampire and I know a thing about what is an isn't possible about flight and that's not how you get airborne.

Shadow wings, and transforming portions of your body to shadow so as to lighten your total weight on the other hand, those can make it possible. So long as Neclord has the Blue Moon Rune which he stole from a village of otherwise peaceful vampires, he and I are more or less evenly matched and even James can't effectively tilt the balance.

You see the Blue Moon Rune grants a vampire who holds it protection against just about every kind of attack. "Just about" being the key word in that sentence because we ran into Neclord a while back in the Toran Republic and forced him to head for the hills with the help of a certain blade known as the Star Dragon Sword." Mirri said nonchalantly.

Riou had long since noticed that the Prophets of Destruction had a habit of carrying just about everything they ever needed on them. So if they didn't have that sword on them, then it only left on explanation.

"Does that mean we have to ride all the way to the Toran Republic, pick up the Star Dragon Sword wherever you left it, and then ride back here?" He shuddered at the though. A journey like that could take weeks. Months that the City States of Jowston did not have.

James gave his horse a quick rub under the chin and then a snap of the reins to get it started.

"Luckily no. In point of fact the Star Dragon Sword is actually buried about an hours ride from here." He chuckled.

XXXX XXXX XXXX XXXX

James and Mirri got to work quickly removing the rocks which had been piled up in front of a small cave the group had ridden to with Riou and Nanami pitching in soon after.

"So what exactly is the Star Dragon Sword?" Riou wanted to know.

Mirri picked up a large bolder and tossed it through the air like it was a pebble.

"It's an incarnation of the Nigh Rune, which is one of the 27 True Runes." She answered.

Riou was officially confused but then it wasn't the first he had visited that state in his present company.

"Wait a minute, so we need the incarnation of the Night Rune, in order to fight a vampire? Wouldn't we want a rune that had something to do with sunlight?" He pointed out.

"Have you heard the expression 'fight fire with fire' by any chance? The Night Rune has the power to destroy any vampire, including one like Neclord with the protection of the Blue Moon Rune. We used it once before, but I was never quite sure we killed Neclord. The place collapsed after the fight and we never found his rune.

Which is why we gave orders to some trustworthy people to bury the Star Dragon Sword here, nearby North Window. It's where Neclord is from and if he hadn't been fully dealt with we figured sooner or later he'd come back here." Mirri noted while tossing a few more rocks aside.

James dropped the last major obstacle to their entering the cave and walked in with the other three in tow.

"So we just pick up the sword and walk out?" Nanami asked hopefully.

Mirri shook her head slowly as James' gate became far more even than it normally was.

"You don't have one, so I don't expect you to understand intuitively Nanami, but when True Runes are involved, things are rarely simple." The vampire reminded her.

At least reaching the Star Dragon Sword seemed to be a simple matter though. There it was right before them, a quite impressive and large broad sword that had to be only slightly shorter than Alexander's blade and was straight instead curved.

James approached it and for a moment looked like he wanted to touch it, but refrained from doing so.

"SDS, you awake?" He inquired while shifting his feet nevrously.

/I never sleep.\ An inhuman voice rumbled.

Riou was glad he was use to hearing the Bright Shield Rune's voice, it kept him from whipping his head about looking for who had spoken the way Nanami did. The Star Dragon Sword (for it could be nothing else) rose out of the ground it had been buried in, glowing with energy.

\Trickster, I would allow no one else to address me so, why do you come for me?/ It demanded.

"Neclord isn't a pile of dust yet, and we need your help to rectify that." Mirri replied instantly.

The Star Dragon Sword swung about pointing itself straight at her.

/I did not ask you to join the conversation Blood. You have nothing to say that I care to hear, either in your true voice, or through the lips of your meat puppet. If you intrude again, I will sever your strings.\ The mystical blade warned.

Riou was promptly greeted to a sight that he had never seen before at that point, Mirri gave a calm sedate curtsy, and then stepped away from the Star Dragon Sword looking meek as could be.

Nanami soon gave voice the thoughts running through Riou's head.

"Wait a minute, you aren't going to use the Star Dragon Sword?" She pleaded.

Mirri shook her head emphatically.

"Unlike most others the Night Rune, didn't care for a human host, instead it inserted itself into a sword. Because of that it doesn't really understand what it is like to have a host who can disagree with it.

Since I'm a vampire and one of its main abilities is to kill vampires, well I certainly can't handle it." She admitted openly.

Riou finally managed to get a word in.

"So your saying that James is the one who has to defeat Neclord?" He practically spluttered.

Mirri gave a slight chuckle.

"Sorry, it's just Alexander had the exact same look on his face the first time he heard that James would handle the Star Dragon Sword." She explained.

James meanwhile slowly took another step closer.

"So, can I, well you know. Take you with me, we find Neclord and a 'snicker-snack' later with his head I come galumphing back." He hesitantly addressed the floating weapon.

The Star Dragon Sword was sadly not in a good mood.

/It will not be so easy this time Trickster. You had the audacity to hand me over to normal humans to transfer me to this cave like I was a lifeless piece of cold iron. After being treated in such way, why should I trust you?\ The Star Dragon Sword demanded as a strange aura of energy began to shimmer about it.

James opened up his hands and held them out in a placating fashion.

"Hey, no tricks this time. I only had you transferred like that because we had another contract to handle and it took us in the opposite direction of here. Even I can't really be in two places at once." He promised.

The Star Dragon Sword was unmoved.

/Words are easy Trickster, especially for you, let me test the nature of your resolve.\ It decreed before suddenly the energy it had been gathering left the Star Dragon Sword in bolts of lightening ripping through the ground and creating a section of rocks that still glistened with heat.

/Blood, Bright Shield, human, do not interfere.\ It commanded ominously.

Then the Star Dragon Sword adjusted itself so that it was pointing blade first at James then darted through the air at him, but James easily spun to the side avoiding the blade.

Nanami began to edge towards the line that the Star Dragon Sword had explicitly told them not to cross. Fortunately Mirri grabbed her before Riou had to think about doing the same.

"The Star Dragon Sword told us not to get involved, we're not going to." She warned the brown haired girl.

Nanami watched with horror in her eyes as the Star Dragon Sword suddenly reversed out of its charge in a way no normal sword could have, and swung itself about in a 360 degree arc.

Which just made the way that James managed to duck under said swing without ever seeing it coming all the more impressive.

"But how can he win? He's a fighting a sword!" Nanami protested.

The Star Dragon Sword reoriented itself again and drove downwards towards James who rolled to the side to evade. This spectacle was repeated several times as the Star Dragon Sword launched stab after stab at James who always managed to shift himself about in just the right way to avoid getting pierced.

"Nanami think about that for a moment, and ask yourself how he can lose when he's fighting a sword?" Mirri answered calmly.

The answer seemed fairly evident at that moment as the sword in question plunged down harder and faster than before. James quickly tucked is body forward into a roll to get out of the way. He abandoned it almost as quickly though, turning it into a backwards jump landing on the Star Dragon Sword's hilt.

In response the blade rose into the air, and readjusted itself, going from vertical to horizontal but James managed to keep his footing more or less, shifting from the hilt to the blade.

The sword began to swing itself about wildly rising even higher up trying to dislodge its unwanted passenger. It was eventually successful, but even as James started to fall, he wrapped his gloved hands around the Star Dragon Sword's blade, and smiled.

"So have I convinced you yet to hang around with me a while?" He asked nonchalantly.

The Star Dragon Sword responded by swinging itself around several times, but failed to achieve anything.

In the end it decided to rise even higher, and pointed itself at an outcropping of rock, positioning itself so that while it would miss the rocks, the nay-kobold wouldn't.

"Oh no." James whimpered.

/Oh yes!\ The Star Dragon Sword cried out joyously as it surged forward.

In response James suddenly tightened his grip and swung his body forward. He let go of the Star Dragon Sword, twisted around, grabbed it again, and then gave stronger tug pushing his feet out to the side so as to balance them against the outcropping of rock.

Put together those two forces managed to push him into the air and he landed flawlessly back on top of the Star Dragon Sword.

Rather than try to shake James off again, his opponent just kept rising higher and higher. It took James and the others a moment to realize what it intended to do, having failed to smash him against the outcropping, it would no do so against the ceiling of the cavern.

James rolled off the side of the blade, and plummeted back towards the bottom of the cave. He stuck out his hands and legs to brace himself, but a moment after he landed all of his limbs went flat and he lay unmoving on the ground.

The Star Dragon Sword went vertical once again, adjusted its position and then plunged headlong towards the fallen nay-kobold.

A green glow started to surround Riou's right hand, but Mirri's own suddenly closed on it hard enough to send a flash of pain up along his arm.

"None of that. The Star Dragon Swords wants to fight James without anyone of us helping him, we let it." She reminded him quietly.

At the very last moment James' body sprung back to life and he rolled to the side just before the blade touched flesh. This time not even the Star Dragon Sword was able to reverse its stab in time and plunged into the rocky floor of the cave.

James in turn suddenly flipped around, and slammed his feet onto the hilt of the Star Dragon Sword. Then he did a full body half sit up half jump, transferring his legs to where his hands were and vice versa. Finally he pushed down hard on the Star Dragon Sword's hilt with all hundred something pounds of his body.

"Say uncle, or whatever it is True Runes have, well at the very least that you give up! Otherwise I'll snap your cross guard like a chicken bone!" He demanded of the blade.

/I yield.\ It voiced now sounding strangely subdued.

James took his hands off the hilt, and the Star Dragon Sword rose into the air again.

/Very well Trickster, your meat puppet has proven your desires.\ It stated mater of factly as if the two had not just been trying to kill one another.

/Night, you underestimate the faithfulness of my host. Why waste energy forcing a piece of lifeless steel to carry around, when warm flesh will do it of it's own accord?\ "James" "answered" though while his mouth moved, no words emerged which touched Riou's ears.

/Most impressive Trickster, even before I chose my own game you had already tilted the odds in your favor.\ The Star Dragon Sword admitted.

/Correct Night. Of course I barely have to pay any attention to my host's movements, he and I are too long joined to disagree on much, though who has trained who... well that is the ultimate trick that one of us is pulling on the other, and neither can tell.\ James' lips continued to frame the syllables of words that never emerged.

The Star Dragon Sword floated lazily in front of James, who picked it up and tossed it into the air. The living weapon rotated several times, before coming to rest just behind James, as if held in place by an invisible strap.

"Well then shall we go? SDS and I have a lesson to teach Neclord about those who pursue immortality for its own ends." James declared triumphantly.

XXXX XXXX XXXX XXXX

Another hour of ridding later the group was back at North Window. Apparently there must have been some truth to the hope that the Star Dragon Sword could defeat Neclord, because this time he did not show up to taunt or attack them as they approached the dilapidated castle that rose over an unoccupied village.

There were a couple more of the zombies that clawed their way free the soil they had apparently been buried in though, but they went down even quicker than the first four had.

James simply put a hand on the Star Dragon Sword's hilt and in moments he was carving up each and every single one that dared peek its head above the ground.

As they dismounted and approached the castle James took the position of vanguard instead of walking side by side with Mirri as he normally did. He then proceeded to carve a path through any undead flesh foolish enough to get in his way.

Once inside the castle zombies no longer popped out of the ground, but there was several of them who had apparently been just left laying around to handle anyone who came near.

James dispatched them with a vengeance so swift and mighty that occasionally the chairs they had been occupying ended up being left with wounds just as noticeable, and probably just as impairing of function. Riou certainly wouldn't want to try his luck by sitting in one of them.

Not that he got a chance, because for the first time since the two had met Riou was seeing James take something completely and totally seriously.

It was a sight that had horrors all its own and possible even greater than those brought about by the nay-kobold who laughed and made bad jokes he emerged the victor from life or death struggles with the expected result for his opponent.

This James kept marching through hallway after hallway, climbing staircase after staircase with a single uniform stride repeated time after time after time after time. He didn't even pause to deal with the zombies, he just reached out and struck them down.

Riou couldn't help but remember the way that he had seen the Star Dragon Sword itself attacking James not long ago, each blow was simple, economical, and deadly.

The stories he had been told said that no one could have two True Runes on his person at the same time. James wasn't exactly doing that, but he had one True Rune in his right hand and one in the sword who's hilt he now gripped.

Which added up to what exactly?

Before he could think any more on that issue, the group was assaulted by something entirely new that left Riou covering his ears in pain.

"What the hell is that?" He gasped in shock.

Mirri gritted her teeth rather more forcefully than was prudent, a fang driving itself into her lower lip.

"It's Neclord. He can't play an organ to save his nonexistent soul, but he always tries because he knows that it drives me up a wall!" She grunted in distaste.

To Riou's knowledge James' sense of hearing had to be at least as good (more likely better given the discrepancy in ear size) as Mirri but he wasn't effected in the slightest, or maybe he was simply still in the grip of whatever had taken him.

The red furred nay-kobold lead the way round another spiral staircase, and then he was was face to back with Neclord.

Without wasting a word James tossed the Star Dragon Sword into the air and drew a dagger which he tossed forward before catching the Star Dragon Sword.

The dagger drove itself into one of the holes on the organ pipes he was playing causing the music to come to an abrupt stop.

"Hey Neclord. I've got an old friends who wants to say hello." James announced as he raised the Star Dragon Sword with both hands.

There was a face built into the hilt of the weapon but ti didn't move in the slightest as a voice bounced through his head once again.

/Hello you who would dare to usurp the power of the Blue Rune Moon, prepare to meet your final end.\ The Star Dragon Sword noted dryly.

Neclord took his hands off the organ and stood up.

"You're back quicker than I expected, however don't think that I didn't make plans for such an event. Firecat unless you hand the sword over to me I will kill this girl." Neclord threatened as he pushed back the organ bench he had been sitting on and got down on his knees to pull out a young girl from underneath it.

Her skin was midnight black with hair the same color, and a red blindfold was wrapped around her eyes.

"See kitten? You're nothing but a mewling, or should I say mewing babe next to me, your own sense of kindness if your greatest weakness. I'll even give you time to run away and not come looking for you." Neclord scoffed.

James looked at the Star Dragon Sword, then back at Neclord and the girl who he held by the throat.

"You're right Neclord. Mirri's told me countless times, I'm too soft, I have a hard time putting the needs of those around me ahead of my own. I can only lead by serving others.

Thankfully you've spared me that choice. This is what I think of your offer." James drove his blade into the ground where it stuck quite firmly then leaned on it as he began to let lose with a series of hacking coughs.

It climaxed in an impressive wad of saliva that landed on the girl's chin. It had a most odd effect, instead of quickly dribbling down it seemed to gather together in a single clump, and moved very slowly downwards.

As it did so it revealed a patch of skin that was not only fair, but quite pale.

"Like you told me the first time we met 'the nose knows' I wake up next to Mirri almost every single day of my life for the last century and longer, I could pick out the smell of vampire with that blindfold over my eyes." James declared proudly as he yanked the Star Dragon Sword blade free, and both he and Mirri charged together.

Neclord took a moment to look confused, and then surprised, but that was it. He then promptly transformed himself into a bat and headed for the ceiling.

"OHH NO YOU DON'T!" James shouted angrily as he jumped after him, landing on the organ sending another blast of discordant music into the air.

Mirri on the other hand tackled Neclord's "hostage" her hands flashing out as they suddenly ended in razor sharp tips. The blindfold fell and before the two hit the ground it was possible to see the other girl had red eyes as well.

Before Riou or Nanami could help them, another problem reared it's ugly head, and what it an ugly head it was. One of the walls caved in an a giant monster came through it. It looked like an amalgamation of several dozen not quite whole zombies joined together.

It had no legs, but four clawed hands, two in front, two in back gripped the ground as it more or less scuttled towards them. Brother and sister raised their weapons.

"Let's show it what we're made of." Riou whispered.

The monster raised up one of its large hands and brought it down towards Riou who rolled to the side. Nanami meanwhile attacked with her staff, as it extended the string between sections became quite visible and she brought it down on the side of one of the thing's arms.

That made the creature let out a pain filled screech and shudder back temporarily. As soon as the pain fled however it ripped a chunk out of the wall with it's other front hand and hurled it at Nanami.

Riou, not quite sure what he was doing, dashed between it and her and raised his hands. The piece of rubble got within five feet of him and then all of a sudden it slid to the side, as if it had hit a giant invisible shield.

Looking at what was left of the broken projectile however an idea an idea occurred to Riou.

"Nanami keep him busy for a moment!" He shouted as loud as he could.

"Sure thing!" She answered instantly.

Trusting that he wouldn't have to watch his back, he raced for the rock's remains.

With some difficult he wrapped his hands then hurled it at the monster which had just been busy ripping it's own second chunk out of the masonry. Riou's return shot hit it squarely in its misshapen head and it dropped its weapon to let out another pained shriek.

Then it suddenly had another problem, as a bright blast of light filled the room for a few moments and when it had cleared two things had happened.

A great deal of the monster's flesh now emitted the worst mix imaginable between rotting and burnt flesh and Mirri was standing besides Riou.

"Good job, make sure to keep your head on your shoulders kids. Neclord's little pet sadly didn't. His big pet is apparently going to take more convincing than one exploding corpse though." Mirri noted with a mix of pleasure and prudence.

The monster still letting lose with its bone rattling cry of pain, began to make its way up a wall towards the ceiling leaving deep imprints in the rock wherever it's hands found purchase.

In moments it was hanging from the ceiling above them, but didn't quite look like it was going to simply drop on them.

"Okay, how are we suppose to kill it now?" Riou asked.

A moment later he found himself hefted into the air by the scruff of his neck.

"The foolish thing to do is to wait for it to come down for us. So instead you're going to go up there!" Mirri informed him.

Riou twisted as best he could with the vampire holding onto his outfit.

"Couldn't you just fly up there and kill it?" He pointed out hopefully.

"Yeah I could. But if you haven't figured out how things work between the two of us by now, you probably never will. Don't worry, James could climb all over that wall like a lizard. Besides, if you fall I promise I'll catch you before you hit the ground." Mirri answered with a smug smile.

Riou was less than comforted by those words, since how far above the ground he would be caught wasn't something Mirri was willing to testify on. Sadly because of the situation, he couldn't really stop her from hurling him right at the monster.

It swung out at him with one of its clawed hands, but by some small miracle it came up short. That was a very good thing since in his current position Riou couldn't do much to dodge.

He would say this for Mirri however, she knew just how hard to throw him. He didn't slam into the ceiling or even worse go sailing out through some hole that the monster had made. Instead he had slowed down enough to grab onto one of it's back legs and hoist himself onto it.

He then began to wail away at a joint that could be just as well called a knee cap and as an elbow. Either way, after a few good hits from each tonfa the thing snapped. The leg went slack but Riou managed to wrap his hands around it to keep from falling.

That was the advantage of his tonfas, unlike a sword he didn't have to sheath them, they were always within reach but also always left his hands free if needed.

He slowly crawled up the broken leg, and flipped himself over onto the monster's back. The monster let loose with a loud bellow and relaxed it's three working arms dropping to the ground.

Riou grabbed hold of rotting flesh as best he could and felt a tremendous jolt go through is body. He was rocked far enough to the side that he had no trouble seeing Mirri attack the thing as it landed.

It really was impressive, she simply leaned over and struck the same joint that Riou had on its other front limb with her open right palm. The joint bent inwards and the monster was half crippled.

It part fell part careened forward and its head hit the ground.

The monster attempted a half pathetic half grotesque scuttle backwards with it's two still working legs, but all it did was drag its body a couple of feet.

"Thanks for holding it still!" A voice called out from above.

James was plummeting out of the rafters, Star Dragon Sword in hand. Halfway down however he readjusted himself so that instead of holding the sword he was standing with one foot on either side of the cross-guard.

The blade buried itself deep in the monster's head, and its two back legs went slack at once.

James hopped down from his perch and pulled his new weapon/partner out. Then he spat again (with much less theatrics beforehand this time) on the dead monster's.

"Neclord got away, he was faster than I thought he'd be, and he left a hole in the ceiling that he could squeeze through as a bat but I couldn't.

Next time I guess... SDS I swear I won't let you leave my sight, well side, okay really more like back, till I cut the Blue Moon Rune from his right hand.

They say third time is the charm, but that makes the fourth time I've laid my eyes on him and I still haven't fulfilled my destiny." The nay-kobold muttered to himself.

The giant monster turned to dust just like all of the other zombies had and all of a sudden Riou could literally feel a dramatic change.

It was like there had been some sort of strange force making the hairs on the back of his neck stand on end since he had entered this castle and now it was finally gone.

Which made it all the more surprising that the force came back a few moments later, only slightly changed now.

Previously it had been like a large gray sky heavy and ominous, now it was like a giant cat looking down on its prey, the malice of it was less all encompassing but that was hardly a great achievement.

"There. Now that I'm chief vampire of this castle we won't have any more problems with monsters attacking us in here. We might as well pick out whatever rooms we like and get some sleep." Mirri concluded as she casually strode over to the grand organ stretched, and laid herself out along the length of its keys, pressing every single one at once.

James made his way over, carefully laid the the Star Dragon Sword on the ground and more or less joined Mirri by laying down on the bench that Neclord had sat on.

Which left Riou and Nanami to find there own resting places, a task which they got to work on at once.

End Chapter eleven.


End file.
